


I Don't Want To Be Here Either

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 2013, Challenges, Hurt/Comfort, Jimmy Novak Big Bang Challenge, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-03
Updated: 2013-04-03
Packaged: 2017-12-07 00:42:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/742099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What do the demons want with the artifact?” Dean asks.</p><p>Jimmy finishes his burger and crunches the wrapper into a ball. </p><p>“Not only it, but me as well.  Castiel says this thing’s the thing to have if you want control over an angel and their vessel.” </p><p>Dean, Sam, Jimmy, and Bobby seek out a heavenly artifact, but more than demons of the hell-born variety stand in their way: Castiel is, confusingly, a less-than-willing participant; Dean and Jimmy are at constant loggerheads; and Dean and Cas’s fledgling relationship comes with its own unexpected issues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Don't Want To Be Here Either

**Author's Note:**

> Art for this story is by the amazing Lennymechs and can be found at [ I Don't Want To Be Here Either Art Masterpost](http://lennyfics.livejournal.com/6066.html) and it is seriously awesome stuff. Go have a look and tell the artist how much you love it.
> 
> My grateful thanks to my betas [ iamthewalrus451](http://iamthewalrus451.archiveofourown.org) and [ Dapperscript ](http://dapperscript.livejournal.com/) and the unquestioning support of [Tawg ](http://tawg.livejournal.com/) without any of whom this story wouldn't have been worth reading. 
> 
> Any remaining mistakes are entirely my own.

[](http://lennyfics.livejournal.com/6066.html)

The rain’s falling onto the top of Dean’s head in persistent, heavy drops; it sticks his hair to his scalp, making it seem darker than its usual light brown. It doesn’t stop there; it runs down his face in small rivers, dripping down his neck and sneaking under the collar of his jacket, soaking his shirt.

You’d think, given these circumstances, that he’d be pissed and grumpy, but he’s not. Not even the unpleasant cold that occasionally dribbles down his back can ruin his decidedly cheery mood. Not only is this a nice, easy, run-of-the-mill monster hunt, (not an apocalyptic sign anywhere to be seen), but he spoke to Bobby an hour ago, he has Sam and Castiel with him, and for the first time in a week, he knows for sure that everyone he cares about is alive.

“Okay, is everyone ready?” Dean says, and he’s almost smiling. He hefts the machete, looking at the weapon, turning it over and over in his hand. He checks the sharpness of the blade against his thumb and sucks sheepishly at the sliver of blood that appears.

“Ready,” says Sam, checking his own weapon, swinging it in his hand and re-familiarizing himself with the weight.

“Yes, Dean, I’m ready,” Cas chips in. He’s empty handed, but his fists are curling and uncurling by his side. “But I still don’t know why I’m here. You and Sam are more than capable of handling a wendigo on your own.”

It’s the only dent in Dean’s humor. Cas sounds irritated, and Dean gets the impression that if he had a watch, Cas would be looking at it every thirty seconds to make his point. Dean hasn’t seen or heard from Cas in almost a week, despite calling him every day, ostensibly to let Cas know where he and Sam are holed up. It had taken Dean long enough to work up the courage to kiss Cas in the first place, and as Cas had kissed back (even if he did seem a bit surprised), Dean doesn’t think it unreasonable that the angel should acknowledge Dean’s concern, and at least take the time to let him know he’s still alive. 

“What the hell’s up with you?” he grumbles. It’s not as if he hasn’t already asked something similar at least three times in the past half hour. “Somebody steal your lunch money?”

“I don’t understand that…” Cas doesn’t finish, just shakes his head slightly and the rain in his hair shakes loose, a little of it running down his nose to drip from the end. 

“Maybe if Cas has got something else to do, we should just let him go and do it, Dean. He’s right; we can handle the wendigo.” Sam shuffles awkwardly from foot to foot in the mud as he speaks.

Dean ignores him.

He chooses, instead, to step right up into Cas’s space until they’re almost touching, chest-to-chest, nose-to-nose.

“Maybe I just wanted to check that you were okay?” he says, never once moving his gaze away from Cas or even blinking, and it’s really difficult to focus from that distance; it’s making Dean’s eyes water. “You weren’t exactly in tip-top shape after Gabriel dicked with you last week.”

“You wanted to check if I was okay?” Cas stares back and tilts his head in that infuriating way of his, his brow furrowing.

“Yeah, Cas. Because I care about you.”

“You care about me?”

“Jesus, Cas. Are you going to repeat everything I say?”

“No… it’s just… I don’t understand. Why? Is it because… ”

Dean takes a step back and hurriedly throws a warning glare Cas’s way, which effectively shuts him up, even if he does slide a glance at Sam, which is so obvious it’s almost as much of a giveaway. Luckily, Sam isn’t paying attention. 

Dean gives himself some space and focuses properly on Cas’s face. His whole face, little muscular nuances included. He sees the affection he’s looking for mixed in with sadness and confusion. Dean suspects that they’re going to have to have an explicit, out-loud and in actual words conversation about relationships. This is going to be frigging hilarious, given that what Dean knows about relationships wouldn’t even fill a thimble. However, seeing as Sam’s here, listening and watching, Dean satisfies himself with a look in Cas’s direction that clearly says ‘we are not done here.’

“Whether we need you or not, we’d appreciate your assistance if you can spare us the time,” Dean says sarcastically, good mood all but evaporated, and he turns his back on Cas to walk in the direction of the cave.

As he passes Sam, he gets a raised eyebrow and a bitchy glare. “And don’t you start,” he says, jabbing a finger at Sam as he marches past.

As it turns out, they’re damned lucky that Castiel is there. The cave had looked small and compact from outside, but once inside, it had proven to be an extensive and convoluted series of tunnels and chambers. They find and dispatch the first wendigo after a long chase, and after disemboweling it, they let themselves relax. They’ve never seen wendigoes in pairs before, and the second one takes them completely by surprise, Dean cursing their complacency when they’re set on by it.

Dean and Sam are busy checking for signs of life amongst the victims hanging in the creature’s lair, unsuccessfully so far. Cas has wandered a little bit away up another tunnel; Dean can just about make out the tan of the trenchcoat in the gloom. They’re not even keeping a cursory look-out when the second creature leaps out at Sam from an unexplored tunnel mouth.

“Sam! Crap.”

Dean’s exclamation echoes loudly around the chamber as the wendigo barrels into Sam’s upper body and, knocking Dean to one side with an outstretched arm as it passes, throws Sam to the other side of the chamber.

Sam bounces when he hits the far wall where he was thrown, and then slumps against it looking dazed. Sam and Dean are now on opposite sides of the chamber and the wendigo seems undecided which of them to go for. It’s no contest as far as Dean’s concerned; it’d better not go anywhere near Sam.

Dean raises his arms and waves and shouts, “Here you bastard, over here!”

He holds the machete up and ready in front of him, all false bravado. He keeps his eye on the creature as he continues to wave and yell. It’s working, and he gets the wendigo’s full attention. The creature turns away from Sam and charges at Dean, snarling and baring its teeth. Before Dean can really register what’s happening, he’s picked up bodily by the collar of his jacket and pushed roughly to one side, towards Sam; he catches a glimpse of tan coat tails as he rolls, his shoulder ending up on Sam’s shin. Dean quickly picks himself up onto one elbow and looks around: Cas has put himself between Sam and Dean and the rushing wendigo.

A fully mojo-ed up Cas would be no match for the creature, but he’s not fully mojo-ed up. Dean knows this. Even though Cas won’t admit to anything, Dean knows that, over the past weeks since Lucifer’s rising, Cas has been gradually, slowly-but-surely, losing his power and strength. Even today there are already signs of strain: bloody scratches Cas hasn’t bothered to heal, and torn, dusty clothing. But he should still be stronger than the wendigo, and Cas doesn’t need Dean getting in the way and messing up his ninja angel moves, so Dean watches, but keeps his weapon ready to step in when and if needed.

Dean is still watching when the wendigo reaches Cas and swipes at him, enraged; claws tearing across his chest, ripping flesh, drawing blood that quickly turns the white shirt bright red. Dean watches Cas’s face in wide-eyed horror as he sees the pain registering in the tightening of Cas’s features and the narrowing of his eyes, but even though he’s obviously in frigging agony, Cas stands his ground and doesn’t move more than an inch in response to the attack.

Even so, Dean starts to push himself up to help. He doesn’t get further than one knee before Cas rushes forward, catching the confused and angry wendigo off-guard. He grabs it by its neck scruff as it howls in surprise and throws it back, slashing his sword across its midriff, making it stagger but not fall.

Dean settles back to where he was and goes back to watching. Obviously, Cas isn’t as injured as he looks.

Dean alternates his attention between checking Sam and keeping an eye on the battle going on to his right. He peers into his brother’s eyes, which are open but slightly unfocused. Sam’s head turns towards him and Sam nods, albeit half-heartedly. Dean lifts his head to glance across at Cas and the wendigo circling each other. The wendigo is sizing up its opponent. Cas is waiting for his advantage, looking for his opportunity. Dean sees the moment that Cas makes his decision: the slight tensing of his muscles in his cheeks, the slight curl of his fingers in the empty left hand by his side.

Dean hears the flutter of feathers as Cas takes a short flight that lands him the perfect distance from the wendigo, and before it can even acknowledge his presence, with a quick movement of his sword, Cas slashes across its throat and almost separates its head from its body. It falls in a heap at his feet, quite dead.

The point at which Dean is just starting to relax again, figuring that there surely can’t be more than two wendigoes, is, naturally, the point where bad shit happens. Cas drops suddenly to one knee with an all-too-real whimper of pain, and a look of abject terror appears on his face as he looks down first at his injured chest, then around at the cave, and finally at Dean and Sam. He brings a hand up to his chest as if holding his insides in.

“Crap.” Dean stares at Cas, and then glances at Sam, who’s staring at Cas like he’s just as terrified and confused as the angel is.

“Go.” Sam gives Dean a slight push away. “I’m fine.”

Dean doesn’t think twice. He nods in appreciation at Sam, and when he reaches Cas a second later, he places one hand on his shoulder and the other reaches to cup Cas’s chin. Dean lift Cas’s head so that he can focus on Dean instead of the blood on his chest and the gore of the victims in the cave (which at the moment is all that Cas is looking at, and it seems to be freaking him out).

Dean’s never seen Cas react this way before, and if he thought the sight of Cas bleeding out was terrifying, this would be ten times worse. Dean uses the hand on Cas’s chin to bring Cas’s head around and to get his eyes to focus on Dean’s. It’s like flicking a switch. One moment, Dean’s staring into wide-eyed fear and confusion, and the next, the eyes narrow, the muscles stiffen under his fingers and a face stoic, hardened and fully aware, is glaring back.

“Cas, the hell was that? You okay?”

“I apologize,” Castiel murmurs, “I’m fine.”

“You are not fine, Cas. What the hell?”

“Dean, I’m fine.” Cas starts to stand.

“You didn’t look fine.” Dean shakes his head slightly, not at all convinced, as he takes Cas’s elbow to help him up; the fact that Cas lets him doesn’t help in persuading Dean that everything is as it should be. Once Cas is upright, Dean starts to pull at Cas’s clothes by his waist where his shirt tucks into his pants, and lifts a flap of bloodied shirt to look underneath at Cas’s chest. The wounds are nasty with bloody, torn flesh showing the occasional flash of white rib. Cas is skinny, so it doesn’t take much to reach the bones of his ribcage, but even so, the damage is extensive and bleeding freely. Which it shouldn’t be.

“You can heal that, right?” Dean asks, a frown creasing his forehead. He’s aiming for comforting and supportive, but has achieved something between petulance and aggression. Cas gives him a pissed off look (that he probably deserves), so he tones it down a bit. “It’s bad Cas; you need to fix it or you need to let me do it.”

“I can do it,” Cas says, tugging his shirt out of Dean’s hands and pulling his jacket a little tighter around him; he looks decidedly guilty as he hides away the evidence of the fight. Dean knows he’s missing something, but it’s elusive, and Cas is obviously not going to share, so Dean turns back to Sam. Cas is a stubborn bastard; if he doesn’t want to explain, trying to push him into it will just make him dig his heels in harder.

Sam’s obviously feeling somewhat better. He’s standing, even if he’s a little hunched and leaning against the wall getting his bearings, but Dean can tell it’s one less thing he has to worry about. Sam has a smear of blood across his forehead where he’s wiped a shirtsleeve to brush blood, sweat, and dust away from his eyes, but his eyes look clear and focused. Dean grabs Sam’s bicep to help support him and they stumble their way towards the exit over the uneven ground in the cave. Dean gives a quick glance behind him to check that Cas is following them out and is happy to see him trailing a few feet behind. They need to eviscerate the second wendigo and then burn them both before they call the local cops when they’re far enough away. He doesn’t envy the cops the job of identifying the victims; wendigoes aren’t the most hygienic of feeders.

When they get outside, Dean settles Sam on the ground by a lichen-covered boulder, providing a little shelter from the rain. Sam protests, of course, because he’s Sam, but not with any great enthusiasm, and Dean’s hand on his shoulder is more than enough to keep him in place. Dean moves a little further on to where they hid the duffels and puts the weapons away, placing them carefully into the light-brown canvas. 

He finishes closing up the bags and stretches upright, wincing as his muscles twinge from their latest abuse. Cas is crouched down beside Sam, his hand on Sam’s shoulder in a comforting, friendly gesture. Dean’ds smiling as he strides back to join them. 

Between them, he and Castiel maneuver the two creatures to a spot where they can safely be cremated. In between heaving monster bodies and logs and rock, a decent fire-pit starts to take shape. With aching joints, Dean wants to ask why the hell Cas can’t just zap them aflame, but since the incident in the cave, the angel has been really quiet. Unusually quiet, even for Cas, who’s not exactly the most talkative angel at the best of times. If it wasn’t for the fact that Cas is taking as many opportunities as Dean to steal moments of physical contact, Dean would be very worried. As it is, Dean’s worried enough. Dean has vague plans to get him alone sometime tonight and talk. The list of things they need to talk about is growing longer by the hour. At this rate, he might need a bottle. Or two. Hell, maybe he can get Cas drunk if he really tries.

It takes them an age to find enough dry material in all the rain, but finally, a fire is blazing, hot and bright. Cas stands and watches the pyre at its peak, flames shooting high, the odd ember escaping briefly upwards into the air before being extinguished by a lack of anything to feed it, and Dean watches Cas. Castiel’s mind is anywhere but on the fire in front of him, the truth given away in the fists his hands are making and the faraway look in his eyes. Dean starts to speak several times, his mouth opening, but closing again as he realizes he doesn’t know what to say. Cas usually works stuff out for himself, he just sometimes takes a fucking long time to do so, and there’s a prickling anxiety festering inside Dean that he just can’t seem to shake. He wants to do something to fix whatever’s broken in Cas, he just doesn’t know how. Hell, he doesn’t even know what it is that’s broken.

Dean eventually turns away from Cas and the dying pyre to go back to where Sam’s waiting. Sam’s up and about, fussing around the car doing god knows what, and drinking a soda. Dean’s frigging tired now that the hunt is over; he’s really looking forward to a hot shower, food, booze, and bed (not necessarily in that order), in the company of his brother and his friend, keeping them where he can see them. He leans in through the window to grab a beer from the ice box in the back seat and leans his back against the door, peering at Cas, watching his skin reflecting the last glowing red embers from the fire in the dying light of the day.

“What’s up with Cas?” Sam nudges Dean’s arm with his elbow as he leans back next to his brother, crossing one ankle over the other, resting his weight against the Impala.

He shakes his head. “Damned if I know, Sam.” Raising his voice, he calls for his friend, “Cas?”

Castiel hasn’t moved from his spot in a good half hour, head still bent up staring over the fire and into the forest canopy. He looks up and across at Dean’s voice, and as he does so his lips tighten, his brow furrows, and he takes on a strained look. “I should go,” he says.

Dean opens his mouth to object, but before he has a chance to, Castiel has left, leaving an angel-sized hole in the forest and in his evening’s plans.

~~xxx~~

It’s just over a week before Dean sees Castiel again, and it’s been a frigging long week. Normally, Dean would worry - of course he would - but it would be a quiet anxiety rather than an active panic. Now, given that Dean knows without a shadow of a doubt that something serious is up, he’s almost at the active-panic stage.

Even with recent events aside, something’s been wrong for a while: every time Dean has seen the angel over the past couple of months since they raised Lucifer, Dean has asked him if he’s okay, and every time, Cas has replied that he’s fine. Of course, Cas has learnt from the Winchesters, and ‘I’m fine’ doesn’t mean he actually is, so Dean doesn’t believe him.

Since the wendigoes, Dean and Sam have been moving between towns with no real purpose, picking up a couple of easy hunts, looking for apocalyptic signs, and not settling in any one spot while they do so. Dean knows they’re slowly winding their way back to Bobby’s; he’s not sure if they’ve been doing it subconsciously or coincidentally, but now they’re about three days out, in a tiny town they’ve stayed at a couple of times before, though they haven’t been here in the last year or two.

Every time they move on, Dean calls or texts Cas and lets him know where they’ve ended up, should he deign to drop in on them. There’s no sign that Cas has even received the messages. No reply. No acknowledgement. Dean’s tried everything from threatening to pleading.

Today hasn’t helped, even though it’s indirect confirmation that Cas is still alive and kicking. Probably. They ran into four demons in a small, isolated gas station about ten hours back down the highway, hanging around simply waiting for Dean and Sam to turn up (which is terrifying enough on its own). Then, strangely, the demons didn’t try to kill them. Although that made a nice change at first, it soon became clear what they really wanted was Cas; when they figured out that Dean and Sam genuinely didn’t know where the angel was, they still didn’t kill them. They just left. It had to be one of the weirdest demon encounters they’d had and it couldn’t be any kind of good.

Given that, Dean thinks Sam should excuse him for being doubly anxious about Cas’s well-being tonight, but Dean’s face as he comes out of the bathroom after leaving yet another voice mail message on Cas’s phone (the damned angel seems to have forgotten how to pick up the damn thing) must be like thunder; Sam scowls at him and then ups and leaves for the night. Sam takes his laptop and iPod, aiming to sit in an all-night diner with free Wi-Fi and bottomless coffee; sufficient distractions to keep him awake enough to find them another hunt that hopefully will distract Dean for another day.

Dean throws his phone on the nightstand after another abortive attempt to reach Castiel. He just wants to cuddle. Is that too much to ask? Whatever anyone says to the contrary, Dean likes cuddling. He would prefer a little sex with his cuddling, but he’s in no doubt they’ll get there when Cas is good and ready. 

But, for now, instead of the cuddling, he’s got the worry and the anxiety and no decent excuse to avoid doing his own research. At least they’re in a fairly decent and clean motel room for a change. No spider webs, no little black flies clinging to damp walls, no garish green and orange wallpaper. Dean checks out the local news on the TV and the selection of local papers piled up on the nightstand by his bed; he’s found nothing out of the ordinary so far (not their kind of out of the ordinary, at least), though the psychic dancing dog on page three of one paper is a little weird. He chucks the latest paper down on the floor with the others he’s discarded, picking up his phone and juggling it in his hand while trying to decide if there’s any point at all in calling Cas again. Today’s demon encounter has got him flustered.

Turns out he doesn’t have to call Cas again. With a brief flutter and movement of air in the room, Cas is finally here, standing stiffly by the motel door as if he might run out that way if spooked.

Dean’s first instinct is to yell at him but he’s so frigging relieved that the angel is there at all that he forgets he should be yelling; the quiet desperation that comes out in his voice instead he will deny to his dying day. “Cas, thank fucking Christ.”

Castiel frowns at the blasphemy as Dean looks him over. Cas looks tired, though he always looks tired. Poor Jimmy was screwed ten ways to Sunday even before Cas took him as his vessel; the guy probably hadn’t slept for days before he and Cas hooked up. But tonight Cas looks exhausted, bone-deep exhausted. He’s pale and grey skinned and his eyes are not their usual bright, piercing blue.

Dean’s a little shocked. He’d even venture to say that Cas has lost weight (if Jimmy had any fat on him to start with): the suit and trenchcoat seem to swallow his small frame even more noticeably than usual.

Cas takes a couple of steps into the center of the room and hesitates. 

“Hello, Dean.” Crap. He even sounds exhausted, the words are coming out quiet and lacking of their usual gravitas.

Dean swings his legs over the edge of the bed to sit and face Cas. “There are demons looking for you, did you know? You need to call, Cas. Or text. Or something.”

“I know about the demons,” Cas says, without elaboration. He walks towards the bed as Dean stands up, and takes a couple of steps to meet him, and he leans in to Dean, forehead to forehead, his arms circling Dean’s waist, just standing there, clinging and breathing quietly. It freaks Dean out a bit.

“Cas? You want to tell me what’s going on?” Dean asks, leaning his head and shoulders back to try and meet Cas’s gaze.

“No,” Cas’s gravelly response comes even as he moves in to close the gap again, catching Dean’s lower lip between his teeth, teasing and pulling in an attempt to distract him

Dean starts to respond to the kiss instinctively, but catches himself and pulls away. Much as he wants this, he wants to know what’s going on more.

“No, Cas, ‘no’ isn’t an acceptable answer. No secrets. Spill.”

“Dean.” As usual from Cas, his name is spoken with more weight than its one syllable should realistically command, and there’s a plea in it and in the blue eyes that catch and hold Dean’s. “It doesn’t affect you or Sam.”

“Yeah? It’s already affecting us. Demons, remember?” Dean’s trying not to sound pissy, really he is. He can’t help himself, though, and his voice rises as he carries on. “Not to fucking mention, again, by the way, I’m hardly at the top of my game when I’m worrying about you all the time.”

Cas pulls away and Dean expects to get a reciprocal earful. This is how it goes. This is normal: Dean yells at Cas, Cas yells back and occasionally threatens to throw him back into Hell. This Dean can deal with.

But Cas doesn’t yell back. His eyes flicker uncomfortably from the floor to one side and briefly to Dean’s face before looking back to the floor again.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come.”

Dean does not want Cas to leave. As Cas takes a step back, Dean takes a longer stride forward. He brings his arms back around Cas and pulls him in close and tight and apologizes to defuse the tension that’s built up around them. He doesn’t even know what he’s apologizing for, but he does it anyway. 

“Sorry, dude. I’m just worried. I’m glad you’re here.” 

Cas doesn’t reply, but he does very slowly relax against Dean.

”You know what?” Dean says a bit too cheerfully, as he leans back from the hug to smile at Cas, “Time’s a-wasting, and you look hot in that coat.” Dean wiggles his eyebrows. “Get it?”

“I get it, Dean.” Dean’s glad to see the small smile curling the angel’s lips, even if it seems a little pathetic.

“C’mon, let’s watch a movie. I’ll even let you pick.” Dean grabs the remote and swings his legs up to take a sideways jump onto the motel bed. He watches as Cas meticulously sheds and folds his coat and jacket, and then (because Dean might have encouraged the behavior by telling him it’s more comfortable), he pulls his tie and dress shirt over his head and removes his belt before settling on the bed next to Dean in his undershirt and pants. 

“Shoes,” Dean says, and Castiel toes off his shoes, letting them fall over the side of the bed onto the floor. One sock has a hole where his big toe sticks out and Dean tries not to laugh.

Dean stretches out an arm to wrap around Cas’s shoulders and pulls him in close so he’s almost lying on top of Dean, his back against Dean’s chest, his head resting on Dean’s shoulder. Dean buries his nose in Cas’s soft hair for a moment. As far as he knows, Cas never washes his hair, but it’s always clean and soft and it smells like freshly mown grass. Reluctantly, he lifts his head. 

“What do you want to watch?” Dean asks, picking up the remote from the nightstand and flicking through the motel’s pay-per-view. He goes quickly past the porn options and pauses optimistically on the original Star Wars before moving past it when Cas says nothing. When they’ve been round once, Cas sighs and tells Dean to pick. Dean picks ‘Star Wars’ because he’s seen it before and it won’t matter if he misses some of it because he hasn’t given up on getting Cas to talk to him yet.

They sit through the opening credits with Dean planting lazy kisses on the soft skin behind Cas’s ear. Ten minutes in, and Cas has turned onto his side, one arm clinging around Dean’s waist, to return the favor. Another ten minutes and they’re lying flat on the bed, the movie all but forgotten as they kiss with enthusiasm, Cas combing his fingers through Dean’s short crew-cut, and Dean finding the hem of Cas’s undershirt to slide his hand under the shirt and against the warm skin of Castiel’s back.

Dean’s palm strokes along the line of Cas’s ribs and begin to move down Cas’s side to his hip. Dean’s hand stops suddenly when the tips of his fingers slide over scarring skin, rough where it should have been smooth. He frowns and he lets his fingers follow the line of what feels like a barely-healed injury. Castiel has gone rigid against him and has stopped kissing him. The injury is in the right place for it to be the one Cas got in the wendigo attack, but that was a week ago and it should have healed by now, even with reduced mojo. Dean should ask him why it hasn’t, but Cas’s body language is so intensely negative, that he doesn’t; he just moves his hand back to settle on the knobs of Cas’s spine and strokes slowly until he feels Cas slowly relax again. 

Dean really needs to have some of those conversations with Cas.

It’s unexpected when Cas takes hold of Dean’s wrist and guides his hand down to his waist, Cas’s fingers fumbling around Dean’s to undo the buttons on the waistband of his pants.

“Cas?” 

“I thought we should have sex. Now is as good a time as any.”

“Uh… not the most romantic proposition I’ve ever had, Cas.”

“I don’t understand. I thought you wanted to have sex with me.” Cas sounds genuinely confused, and frustrated with his confusion.

“Yeah, I do. One day.” One day, when you’re more like yourself, Dean thinks, but what he says is, “I’ve… uh… got a headache.” Cas looks at him suspiciously, but doesn’t comment.

“Tell you what,” Dean says. “Sam’s not going to be back until the morning. Stay the night. If you still feel in the mood in the morning, we can go at it like bunnies.”

“And if your headache’s better.”

“Uh, yeah, that too.”

“I have things I should be doing,” Cas says rolling away from Dean.

“It’s only four or five hours, Cas. Everyone deserves a night off once in a while. Stay.” Cas turns his head and stares at Dean. “Pretty please?” Dean says, refusing to blink.

There’s a long pause. Dean’s going to have to blink soon before his eyeballs dry out. “Alright,” Cas says eventually. He turns and gets gracefully off the bed.

“Where the hell are you going?” Dean asks.

“The chair,” Cas says, pointing to the grubby piece of furniture in the corner by the table.

“I meant stay the night in bed with me, you twerp.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.”

Dean takes off his t-shirt and jeans without getting off the bed and waves a hand at Cas to do the same, “Shorts stay on,” he says; he doesn’t want too much temptation coming his way. Cas hesitates before he takes off his undershirt, and when he does, his eyes flit anxiously between Dean and the bed. Dean tries very hard not to comment on the sore-looking wendigo scars on Cas’s torso. 

He tugs at the sheets and wriggles underneath and then holds up a corner for Cas to climb in beside him. Castiel is all stiff and nervous again, and Dean wishes he could figure out what the hell is going on. He wishes he could at least ask without the risk of Cas zapping off somewhere. Dean pulls Cas across the bed and strokes his back and kisses him in the way that had relaxed him earlier. For a brief moment, he thinks he might be getting somewhere, but Cas suddenly shifts against Dean and his already tense body jumps as if it received a shock. Dean lifts himself on one elbow so he can focus on Cas’s face, “Cas?” He leans forward and kisses Cas on the end of his nose.

“Dean, I’m not Castiel,” Cas says in a voice that’s thin and light and definitely, absolutely not his.

“Fuck!” Dean leaps backwards off the bed with ungainly, heavy limbs. “Jimmy?” Dean grabs a sheet to cover himself up the same time as Jimmy grabs a blanket.

“Where’s Cas?” Dean says, his anger masking his… what? His shock? His anxiety? His frigging drop-dead-and-go-hide-in-a-corner embarrassment?

Dean’s aggression makes Jimmy sink further into the bed, where he already seems as if he’s trying to bury himself in the mattress. Jimmy holds up his hands, palms facing Dean, “He’s here! He’s here!”

“What do you mean he’s here? Where?” Dean ties the sheet at his waist to leave his hands free. Jimmy’s hand has moved down to twist nervously at the blanket. Dean drags his eyes away and back to Jimmy’s face with some difficulty. He focuses somewhere around Jimmy’s ear, not quite able to meet his eyes.

Dean asks again, “Jimmy, where’s Cas?”

“He’s here. In here. With me.”

Jimmy is staring at a place on the wall somewhere over Dean’s shoulder, and he’s clearly equally as embarrassed as Dean is, but, Dean realizes, Jimmy isn’t acting surprised. He’s not exactly relaxing (because let’s face it, this is not a comfortable situation), but he’s definitely not as freaked as Dean thinks he should be. Definitely not as freaked as Dean frigging is.

Dean’s eyes narrow. “This has happened before?”

Jimmy nods.

“The wendigo hunt?”

Jimmy nods again.

“Where else?” Dean asks harshly, wondering what he’s missed, or more importantly, what Cas hasn’t deigned to mention.

Jimmy rushes through his answer warily, pulling the blanket up higher and holding it under his chin. “The school with the ghost. Um… the hotel with the awful purple paper flowers when you made Castiel watch Star Trek VI. The time you nearly got killed by the demons in the abandoned lawn mower factory. They’re the only ones I remember when you were there, too. It’s almost always when Castiel is stressed.”

“Cas was stressed by Star Trek VI?” Dean asks, momentarily forgetting the situation in the sheer absurdity of it.

Jimmy shrugs.

“Cas is stressed by this?” Dean asks quieter, talking to himself more than Jimmy, waving a loose hand at the bed.

Jimmy shrugs again, but this time, he pulls a face that almost looks like accusation. It’s only a brief slip, but Dean catches it.

He ignores the look and focuses on the nightstand instead. “Why are you here, Jimmy? What the hell’s going on?” Dean asks.

Before Jimmy can answer, Dean senses, rather than sees, a shift in the figure in the bed. He risks a glance sideways to his face and he knows Cas is back.

Castiel looks around, noting his covering blanket and Dean’s sheet, then looks up to meet Dean’s concerned gaze. He tentatively lowers the blanket to his waist and removes Jimmy’s death grip on the top edge.

“Cas? The hell?”

“I apologize.” Cas looks down at his chest. He sounds as if he’s talking to himself, not Dean. His forehead creases up into little furrows, like he’s trying to work out a complex mathematical puzzle.

“Jimmy…” Dean stops. He’s not sure what he wants to ask.

Cas lets out a deep, long breath and looks up at Dean. “I have to fix this, but…” The pause hangs between them with all the dangerous, deadly words hidden in it, “Goodbye, Dean.”

“Oh, no... No… No Cas, you’re not…” It doesn’t do any good; Cas is gone, along with his clothes.

He flops onto his back on the bed, fingers pulling at his hair. “Cas, you bastard, get back here!” He yells, getting louder and louder, until he’s screaming Cas’s name and the motel manager comes to threaten to call the cops or throw him out, and he wonders why the fuck one thing, just one thing, can’t go right. Especially this thing; anything but this thing. Anything but Cas. Fuck.

~~xxx~~

Considering the circumstances, he didn’t expect to sleep, so he’s quite surprised when he’s jerked awake by Sam dragging himself back from the diner at 7am in a foul mood, the motel room door slamming behind him with the obvious intention of making a point.

Dean grumbles and drags himself upright on the bed; it looks as if he had an orgy in it, and he sees Sam drag his eyes over it and scowl.

“Good night’s sleep, Dean?” Sam asks with a bitch face.

“You’re not funny, Sam. You know that, right?” Dean deflects.

Sam looks tired, which isn’t really surprising given that he’s been up all night, and Dean’s about to make him miserable, which he tries to feel guilty about, but doesn’t. Dean stretches and reaches out for one of the coffees in Sam’s hand, glad at least that his brother’s mood didn’t extend to downright selfishness.

“We’ve got a problem, Sam.”

Sam settles his huge frame heavily into the motel room chair, taking a sip of the other coffee. He runs a hand down his face, before asking, “What’s up?”

“Cas showed,” Dean says.

“That’s good isn’t it?” Sam says. 

“Is he okay?” Sam adds when Dean hesitates.

“Not really. Jimmy showed too.”

“Jimmy? Jimmy Novak? Seriously? Are you sure?” Sam jerks up, spilling a little of his coffee out of the sip hole in the lid and he looks around the room, as if he expects to still see him there.

“Yeah I’m sure. You think I’d make this up?”

“No, of course not, Dean. It’s just, we didn’t even know Jimmy was still around after the whole Cas dying thing. And what happened to Cas? Where is he? Not Heaven?” Sam’s voice rises with genuine concern at the thought of Cas’s dick brothers getting their hands on Cas.

“According to Jimmy, Cas was still in there. Like… roomies. And Cas came back, but then he just flew off.”

“What did he say? Anything?”

”He just said he had to fix it.” Dean shrugs. “I’ve got to say, the look on his face didn’t fill me with confidence.”

“Did it have anything to do with those demons we ran into yesterday? Did you ask him?”

“I asked. He didn’t say. He wasn’t exactly talkative.”

Sam looks thoughtful. “Demons can give control to their hosts; do you think that works for angels too? Did Cas give Jimmy control?”

Dean shakes his head. “Believe me, Sam, this wasn’t voluntary.” Dean stands up and he starts to fidget with his toiletry bag, pulling stuff out, blindly inspecting his toothpaste before putting it back again.

Sam’s eyebrows shoot up. “The other week. The wendigo?”

Dean turns towards his brother and nods.

Sam clicks his fingers a few times, fast. “Two weeks before. At the school. Cas could see the ghost, but then we lost him for a couple of minutes and when we found him again, he’d lost the spirit?”

“Yeah, apparently,” Dean says.

Sam gazes into space and starts chewing his bottom lip. Dean recognizes the signs. “You think. I’m gonna shower.”

The shower doesn’t help clear his head much, but at least he’s not distracted by the smell of Cas clinging to his skin anymore. He comes back into the main room and Sam immediately starts spouting off random ideas, shaking his head at each one before eventually throwing his hands up in frustration. “I have no idea if anything I’m saying makes sense. We don’t have the books. We need Bobby, or at least his library. I’m not sure the books will cover this anyway. A half-fallen angel’s relationship with his vessel? It’s a little specific. We need Cas, and even he might not know; it’s not like another angel has been in this situation before, from what Cas has said.” Sam stares at Dean. “Are you even listening to me?”

Dean refocuses on Sam and replays in his head what Sam has said because, in truth, he’s only been half-listening. “Yeah, of course I’m listening. I’ll call Cas. You call Bobby.”

Predictably, Cas doesn’t answer; Bobby agrees to get on it, but doesn’t sound optimistic. Bobby invites them to come and stay, not that they really need a specific invitation; Bobby’s is home. They’ve been heading that way anyway, so it’s no trouble to start taking a more direct route rather than their gradual meander.

~~xxx~~

The next night, they end up in a new town that can only barely be called a town, in another small motel, and this one can’t be called anywhere near clean. There’s a shelf just inside the door that’s acting as a bookcase; it doesn’t have any books, but it does have a sad collection of seedy magazines. Dean wipes a finger in mute disgust through the dust and Sam lifts one eyebrow in amusement.

“What? Even I’m fond of basic hygiene,” Dean says, trying to make it sound light-hearted, but he’s too inherently anxious to successfully pull it off.

Dean sends his usual text to Cas, letting him know where to find them. Naturally, Dean doesn’t get a reply to this one any more than he’s had to the others. Dean doesn’t even know if the angel has read the texts or listened to the voice messages he’s left, but Dean still continues to text and he continues to call.

Dean doesn’t want to sleep; he wants to be doing something, anything, to find Cas. Needing to sleep only makes him feel guilty that he’s not doing something more constructive, but the last two days have been busy with driving and almost entirely without rest. Sam’s already asleep by the time Dean drops, exhausted and fully-clothed, on the bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to count all the little cracks in between the two huge ones. His eyelids grow heavy as he lulls himself into a hypnotic state by the repetitive counting of the dark threads and after a few minutes, they stay closed.

The phone ringing by the bedside a couple of hours before dawn wakes him. He grabs at it, fingers not quite coordinated yet, fumbling in his haste, and answers it while it’s still halfway to his face. Sam grunts and turns over in the next bed, opening his eyes to peer sleepily at Dean.

“Hello?” Dean’s voice is deep and rough with sleep. Sam mouths ‘who is it?’ across the room at him and Dean flaps a hand, telling Sam to hang on a second.

“Dean?” Dean doesn’t recognize the weary voice on the other end of the phone.

“Who’s this?”

“It’s me. Jimmy.”

“Jimmy, what’s going on? Is Cas still with you? Is he okay? Where are you?” Dean watches Sam sit up in his bed, listening to his half of the conversation.

Jimmy’s voice is irritable as he replies to the barrage of questions. “Which question do you want me to answer first, Dean? Castiel is not okay, but he’s here. I’m also not okay, thanks for asking by the way. I’m… we’re near some place called Bozeman; I have no idea which state. Where are you? Can you come and pick me up?”

“Bozeman, Sam. Look it up,” Dean nods to the laptop, powered up but hibernating on the small motel table. “Jimmy, hang on a minute, we’re checking where you are,” he says back into the phone, making hurry up motions with his other hand to Sam, who now has the laptop up and is busy at the keyboard.

“You still there, Jimmy?” Dean asks after a minute, when the silence gets too much for him.

“Still here. Just hurry it up will you? I’m not exactly safe here.”

“Where’s Cas? Isn’t it about time he showed?”

The pause at the other end of the phone is not comforting, though the tone it’s said in is sympathetic. Dean immediately hates it. “Dean, sorry, not this time. He can’t right now.”

Sam says, “Got it,” before Dean can ask what Jimmy means. Sam turns the laptop round for Dean to see the map.

Bozeman is in Montana, about a five or six hour drive away, and is conveniently on their route to Bobby’s, a coincidence Dean’s not entirely convinced of; but even if it’s a trap, he knows they’re going to go and walk right into it. “We can be there in five hours.”

Jimmy sounds intensely grateful. “Thank you.” He gives Dean the address, telling him it’s some empty house just outside of the residential area right on the edge of the town, and Dean hangs up. Sam’s already getting dressed and chucking things into their duffels as he goes.

Dean fills Sam in on Jimmy’s half of the conversation as they drive off, but they both eventually fall silent. Sam dozes on and off in the passenger seat, and Dean goes through all the questions he has over and over, questions like what the fuck does ‘Castiel isn’t okay’ and ‘not this time’ actually mean?

Dean nudges Sam when they hit the approach to Bozeman. “Hey, Sleeping Beauty, we’re close.”

Sam shuffles upright and looks blearily around, then glances at his brother, “You okay?”

Dean answers with the standard, “I’m fine, Sam,” quickly catching himself in time to stop a hand wiping over his weary face and undermining the validity of his answer.

Sam nods, accepting what Dean says even if he doesn’t believe it. “Do you think they’re okay?”

“How the hell would I know, Sam?” Dean says; it came out rougher than he’d intended, but he doesn’t care enough to apologize, and he’s not really in the mood for conversation anyway.

Sam takes the hint. He’s quiet after that, except to pull up the map on the laptop and start directing them to the address Jimmy gave them.

They’re working entirely in the dark, not knowing anything about the situation or about what Jimmy might not have been safe from or about what they’re walking in to, so they approach cautiously. Dean parks the Impala a block away, off the end of the residential area and tucked away in a hidden driveway just before the road turns more rural. They open the trunk and arm themselves with salt, guns, and knives. Sam picks up the demon-killing knife and tucks it in his jacket pocket, at the ready. They’re as inconspicuous as they can manage for mid-morning and daylight, but other than one lone car speeding away from the town, they don’t see anyone.

The house stands on its own down a short driveway, surrounded so thoroughly by trees and shrubs that Dean and Sam can’t see anything of the building beyond its gutters and roof until they are almost upon it. They pause at the edge of the cover offered by the greenery all around them to look beyond and into the windows. There are no curtains, but as it’s bright morning sunlight, they can’t make out anything inside the house through the glare on the windows; the glass simply reflects sky and trees back at them. Dean indicates with one hand and a tilt of his head that he’s going to sneak round to the left side of the house, and that Sam should do the same with the right. Sam nods in understanding. They keep low and stay hidden in the bushes until they can’t any longer. Dean loses sight of Sam as he disappears around the corner of the far side of the house.

Taking a deep breath, Dean ducks low and runs in a crouch towards the wall. He stands and sidles along the wall until he reaches the nearest window. He has to get closer to the glass than he’d like to be able to see inside; it makes him incredibly nervous and he wipes a sweaty palm on his jeans before peeking around the side of the window frame and into the room beyond. The room’s completely empty; there’s no furniture, no fittings, no rubbish, nothing. And, of course, there’s no Cas or Jimmy. The window’s a sash window with an easily opened latch, and he pulls a thin piece of metal from his inside jacket pocket. He slides it between the frames and undoes the latch.

He cringes when he lifts the bottom half of the window open and it squeaks alarmingly. He pauses, his head cocked to one side as he listens for signs that someone - or something - else heard it. He doesn’t hear anything, so he grunts out his held breath and pushes the window further up, grinding his teeth in frustration at the small squeaks the old, swollen wood makes as it rubs together.

The window’s at a perfect height for climbing through, and Dean’s hope that Sam’s finding it as easy as him is short-lived when Dean hears a yell from further inside the house. Dean pulls his gun and his blade out, crosses the large room in a few long strides, and yanks open the interior door, all ideas of stealth now abandoned.

The house is quiet again when he hits the long hallway that runs left and right outside the room, and he has no idea which way to run. He’s losing precious seconds in indecisive head turning when he hears a scuffle and another yell from the back of the house. He turns that way and charges towards the sound, bursting into a room which used to be the kitchen, full of old and out-dated faux-wood 1980s cabinets and counters, gaps where the appliances used to go.

Sam is pushing himself up from the floor, looking dazed but determined at the other person in the room, a beefy redneck, who currently has his back to Dean. Dean wasn’t quiet coming into the room and the redneck turns quickly to face him, eyes briefly flashing black. Sam charges at the demon, forcing it to turn back to face the attack, and Dean takes the small opportunity it opens up and steps forward the necessary distance, grabs hold of the demon’s shirt collar, yanks its head back, and cuts its throat. The holy water and salt that coat Dean’s blade can’t kill, only offer a painful and temporary distraction, but it’s enough. Sam steps in with the demon-killing knife, and the follow-through stab into the demon’s heart is like a well-practiced performance. The demon sparks in death before it drops and lies still.

“You okay?” Dean asks Sam, eyes casting around, looking for signs of more trouble, while glancing briefly over to Sam.

“I’m fine. Just winded.” Sam walks toward a door on the other side of the kitchen that looks like it used to be a pantry. He nods towards the demon, “He was trying to break into here when I walked in.” Sam tosses Dean the knife, and Dean catches it easily.

The pantry door has no lock, but when Sam pushes against it tentatively, it doesn’t budge. “There’s something blocking it from inside.” Sam puts his mouth close to the door and calls loudly through the wood “Jimmy? Cas?” There’s no answer from inside.

Dean’s alternating his attention between the pantry and the entry to the kitchen. All’s quiet, but he doesn’t trust that they’re alone.

After a short examination of the door and frame looking for weak spots, Sam starts pushing and kicking at the hinges, creating a lot of noise that makes Dean edgy. Sure enough, it brings a demon. Dean’s slightly hidden behind the door into the kitchen; the demon rushes in and passes Dean without spotting him and makes straight for Sam. Dean jumps it from behind before it makes it across the room, but he’s shaken off as if he’s no more troublesome than an insect. Sam must hear the scuffle, because he turns to face the demon and ducks just in time to avoid the approaching fist. Dean jumps on its back as Sam stands up in a jerk, punching his shoulder into the demon’s gut as he does, momentarily throwing it off balance.

The action takes Dean by surprise as well and he drops the knife. The demon comes quickly back to its senses, turns, and throws Dean into one of the kitchen counters, head first. Dazed and floundering, Dean drops to his knees, waiting for the next onslaught, unable to move to defend himself or fight back. The demon grabs him by his jacket collar and hauls him to his feet, fist back and ready to strike. Then there’s a sudden look of surprise on its face, and it drops to the floor, taking Dean with it, its hand clenching around Dean’s collar even tighter in death. As they fall together, Dean sees the flash of the demon knife sticking obscenely from the demon’s back, the hilt held firmly in Sam’s fist.

Dean lies too dazed to move until Sam’s arm reaches around him to pull off the demon’s grip and slip an arm around his shoulder, wrapping his hand around his forearm to haul him upright. Sam looks at him in concern, raising one eyebrow to silently ask the usual question. Dean nods that he’s okay, and props one hip on a counter to hold himself up.

“I’m fine, Sam. Finish that door.”

Sam nods slightly and goes back to kicking the hinges of the pantry door to weaken them in the frame, and Dean’s grateful yet again that his little brother grew up so big.

Dean’s hoping that if there were more demons they would have shown themselves by now, but he keeps one eye focused on the door to the kitchen regardless, the knife settled back in his hand where it belongs. The demon’s blood and gore has been roughly smeared away, though that’s another set of clothes for the laundry. He hears a crack from the other side of the room and glances across in time to see the pantry door frame give way with a second loud crack. Sam shifts his weight to his shoulder and pushes the broken side of the door into the interior space just far enough to stick his head in and peer inside. His head and shoulders briefly reappear and Sam grabs a small flashlight from his pocket, disappearing inside the space again. Dean can see the faint beam of light through the gaps in the broken door as Sam moves it around to light up the corners of the small room.

Dean hears the small gasp Sam makes before his exclamation, “Crap!”

Dean levers himself up and crosses the room quickly. He tries to peer past Sam’s broad back, but Sam uses an arm to hold him out of the way and starts renewed effort on the door, forcing it open far enough to almost be able to pass through.

“Sam, is he in there?” Dean asks impatiently as he tries again to see past Sam and into the room.

“Yeah, he’s here. There’s blood everywhere, Dean.” Sam glances back briefly and his eyes look as worried as his voice sounds.

Dean leans in to help and their combined weight makes the door give way with a sudden crash, and Dean just catches it, preventing it from falling into the room and landing on top of the man lying curled and still in a pool of blood. Sam pulls the door out of the frame and into the kitchen and drops it off to one side while Dean hurries in through the gap. He kneels in one of the few clean patches of floor and expertly, but with slightly shaky fingers, goes straight to the pulse point above the familiar white collar, now dirty and bloody and decidedly worse for wear. His fingers rest against familiar warm flesh and dark stubble, and he breathes a sigh of relief when he feels a faint pulse beating under the unhealthily grey skin.

“He’s alive,” he reports. He’s trying to stay professional but it’s fucking hard. His hand gets shakier. He sits unmoving on the floor.

“Dean?” Sam queries from over his shoulder.

“Yeah, Sam, I’m good,” he says and pulls himself together.

He looks for the source of the blood. It doesn’t take long; there’s a small hole in Jimmy’s shoulder. Not as destructive as a bullet, but a blade of some sort. The wound goes deep, though luckily not all the way through, and although the flesh and cloth around it is saturated with blood, it’s completely dry and rust brown; it probably stopped bleeding a while ago. The deep cut running lengthways on Jimmy’s wrist still sluggishly pulsing blood is a different story. Some of it has begun to clot, as though this cut too was made a little while ago, but it’s too wide and too long to have completely stopped.

Sam’s voice comes through from outside, still worried, unable to see what’s happening past Dean. “Dean? What’s happening? We need to go.”

Dean takes off the jacket and the thin cotton button-up he’s wearing over his t-shirt and wraps the shirt tightly around Jimmy’s wrist wound, then puts his jacket back on as he stands up. “Let’s get him out of here.”

“Is it Cas? Jimmy?” Sam asks, tentatively.

“I dunno for sure, Sam, but I’d think Jimmy, wouldn’t you? All that blood, dude.”

Dean kneels again and pats Jimmy’s cheek, none too gently, calling to him, hoping to wake him. “Hey Jimmy. C’mon, wake up.”

He’s rewarded with fluttering eyelids, and as consciousness returns, a wide, frightened stare emerges, pupils fully dilated in the dim light, ringed with a narrow band of rich blue that Dean knows so well, but simultaneously doesn’t; they’re Jimmy’s eyes, not Castiel’s. The vague hope Dean hadn’t realized he was hanging onto so desperately dies.

Dean looks at Jimmy and Jimmy looks at Dean. And then both of them look uncomfortable, sliding their gazes slightly to opposite sides, so they’re having this weird conversation where they’re talking to each other’s shoulder.

“Can you get up? Can you walk?” Dean asks, and catches Jimmy’s small nod out of the corner of his eye. 

Jimmy sits up by sliding up the pantry wall without any help, but when he tucks his feet under him and starts to stand, he winces in pain and nurses his injured shoulder, looking as if he’s going to pass out again.

“Dean, what’s the matter with you? Give him a hand, for God’s sake,” Sam hisses impatiently.

Dean hesitates but reaches out and grabs Jimmy’s good elbow with one hand, wrapping his other arm around Jimmy’s waist to hold him up; he determinedly ignores the way Jimmy’s whole body tenses.

“Coming through, Sam,” he comments over his shoulder before turning in the narrow space and passing Jimmy out. He’s more than happy to let Sam help Jimmy out of the house.

When they’re nearly at the car, Jimmy passes out again, slumping suddenly and silently against Sam with no warning. Sam holds the smaller man up with relative ease, adjusting his grip, so Dean doesn’t feel the need to rush in and help. Dean can tell Sam is a bit pissed and thinks it’s odd, but that’s just tough because he’s not going to explain; it’s hardly any distance to the car anyway. He does speed up to open the car door, and watches while Sam bundles Jimmy carefully into the back seat.

The Impala’s back seat has seen more than its fair share of blood; Dean wonders if he should have notches or something to keep a tally of how many people have bled back there. Then he wonders if Jimmy’s blood is the same as Cas’s blood: would Jimmy get a notch of his own? Castiel already has a notch, so would Jimmy’s not count? Then, Dean realizes his brain is rambling, which it does when he panics. He pulls himself back together. No new notch. No notches at all. He soon realizes that Sam is talking to him.

“What?” he asks irritated, turning to glare.

“I said,” Sam starts with exaggerated patience, the passenger side door already open with Sam half a step in, “What the hell are we hanging around for?”

“Yeah, sorry.” Dean hesitates. Something’s missing. He glances at Sam waiting by his door, then down at Jimmy through the rear window, lying on his back in his suit.

“Cas’s trench coat.”

“What?”

“Where’s Cas’s coat?” Sam’s looking at him as if he’s certifiably insane, but Cas’s trench coat is fucking important and Jimmy’s not wearing it.

“Dean, seriously. Unconscious bleeding guy in the back seat and you’re worried about a coat?”

Fuck, he’s worrying about a coat. Dean takes a breath and wipes his hand over his face. He looks down at Jimmy. Jimmy. Not Cas. Looks like Cas, but not Cas. But also Cas. He needs to protect Jimmy to protect Cas. Got it. Unconscious bleeding guy. Need to fix up the unconscious bleeding guy and get Cas back. Okay. He exhales, opens the car door with a slightly sweaty hand, and slides down into the driver’s seat. He’ll buy Cas a new coat.

“Dean, do you think Cas is still in there?” Sam asks tentatively as they’re driving away.

Dean flicks his eyes briefly across to Sam, concentrating on the road. “I hope so, Sam.”

“So, assuming he is, what next?”

“Wake Jimmy up, stitch him up, and hang on to him while we work out how to get Cas back.”

“Assuming Jimmy wants Cas back, too,” Sam says depressingly. “Last time we met him he wasn’t too happy about Cas.”

Dean grits his teeth. “He doesn’t get a vote.”

There’s an uncomfortable silence before Dean continues. “Things are different now. Before, Jimmy thought he could have his family. And before, Cas wasn’t still rattling around sharing his body. Now he knows he can’t have his family and Cas is still here. He agreed to be Cas’s vessel knowing what he was letting himself in for.”

“Did he? Did he really? ‘Cause the way I remember it, Dean, he only agreed to be Cas’s vessel so that Cas didn’t take Claire after he came back from his dick re-training. And on top of that, Jimmy’s a devout man, or at least he was. God knows what he thinks now, and at that point, Cas still worked for Heaven. Now he doesn’t. You’re damned right that things are different, but believe me, not necessarily in a good way.”

“What if Castiel doesn’t want to come back?” The quiet voice from the back seat startles them both.

“Why the hell wouldn’t Cas want to come back?”

“I’m sure he has his reasons,” Jimmy says cryptically, levering himself up to a sitting position against the back seat. “Things are different now, remember? Where are we going?”

Sam answers, peering over his shoulder and inspecting Jimmy as he speaks. “A motel. Five minutes. Are you okay?”

“Sore. Dizzy. But, yeah, okay I guess.”

“Is Cas still there? How is he?” Dean asks.

Jimmy doesn’t answer straight away, but mumbles something under his breath that Dean can’t catch. Dean’s just about to interrupt when Jimmy raises his voice. “He’s here,” says Jimmy, letting out a long sigh. “He’s sick. Actually, I don’t know how to describe it, it doesn’t really translate, but he’s here.”

“Can he heal you?” Sam asks.

There’s another period of mumbled words, and Sam shifts around in his seat, “Jimmy, are you talking to Cas right now?”

Jimmy refocuses on the people in the car and nods, a quick movement that Dean catches in the rear-view mirror.

“He’s talking too fast. I can’t understand him…” Jimmy screws up his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose between his finger and thumb. He doesn’t look comfortable; he’s got a look of pained concentration on the part of his face that Dean can see. Jimmy presses the heel of his hand to his forehead.

“Jimmy?” Sam reaches an arm over to grip his shoulder and gives a squeeze to get his attention.

Jimmy ignores him. “Castiel, stop… you have to stop. I can’t… It hurts, Castiel, damn it!” He suddenly stills, going quiet, eyes sliding closed. Dean swerves on the road in alarm, only narrowly staying on his side of the center line.

Dean’s eyes flick from the road, to Sam, to the back seat. “Sam, the fuck?”

Sam leans further over the seat, shaking Jimmy with the hand that’s still sitting on his shoulder. Sam stops when Jimmy groans and his eyes open.

“Castiel can’t heal us,” Jimmy shifts awkwardly, answering Dean’s original question. “I hope you’ve got codeine,” he mutters before he closes his eyes again and slumps a little deeper into the seat, screwing up his face as he catches his shoulder on the leather.

It’s Sam who helps Jimmy into the motel room, casting annoyed looks Dean’s way when Dean again makes no move to help. It’s Sam who sits Jimmy on the edge of one of the beds, handing him codeine and a glass of tap water. It’s Sam who helps Jimmy take off his jacket and shirt so that Sam can take a proper look at the shoulder wound, even though Dean’s the better stitcher.

It’s Dean who can’t help staring at Jimmy’s chest and the wendigo scars that are still red and raw. It’s Dean who feels the familiarity of guilt settling over him that he didn’t fix this, whatever this is, before it got this far. It’s Dean who wants to fuck his fucking life because he dared, for a brief moment, to believe he could have something simple and good.

When Jimmy spots Dean looking, he noticeably fidgets in discomfort, wrapping one forearm across his chest like Dean’s perving on his nipples. Oh, for God’s sake. Dean huffs in annoyance and moves his stare down to the vague location of Jimmy’s knees.

“I need the other first aid kit,” Sam says, grabbing the car keys and leaving the room before Dean has a chance to offer to get it for him, leaving Dean and Jimmy awkwardly trying to look anywhere but at each other in a room that’s way too small for that much avoidance.

Dean sighs. Normally, he’d avoid this conversation like the plague, but if he and Jimmy are going to be spending time together, they can’t carry on like this. Sam has left the door open, so Dean pushes it shut and flicks the catch. When Jimmy reacts by looking slightly alarmed, Dean holds his hand up to calm him down. “Whoa, whoa. I just wanna talk for a minute. Without Sam.”

He needs to clear the air.

“The other night when I was with Cas,” he pauses to try and read Jimmy’s reaction, but he can’t. It’s funny: he can read Cas perfectly, and Jimmy’s a whole lot more expressive than Cas. He carries on. “I’m sorry, okay? You weren’t meant to see that.”

“And if I hadn’t seen it, it would be okay?” Jimmy asks. Yep, that’s definitely anger.

“It is okay. Isn’t it?” Dean asks; he’s sure Cas would have said something if it wasn’t.

Jimmy properly makes eye contact for the first time, though he doesn’t lose the tension in his face. He keeps his voice low as he picks at a threadbare patch on the thigh of his pants, “I don’t have a problem with Castiel having sex, Dean. God knows he should get some of the few perks of being stuck down here.” Jimmy sniggers, but not as if he finds it funny; it’s a bitter sound. “’God knows.’ That’s funny don’t you think?” he asks, looking up at Dean; Dean doesn’t.

“Then what?” Dean leans back against the door, confused.

There’s a knock on the door, and Sam’s worried voice seeps through the thin wood. “Dean? Open the door. What’s going on in there?”

“In a minute, Sam,” Dean raises his voice enough to be heard before quickly lowering it again to repeat his question. “Then what, Jimmy?”

Jimmy raises his eyes to meet Dean’s. “I just think he deserves better.”

“Better?”

“Better than you,” Jimmy says.

Dean stares. Jimmy did not just say that. Surely he’d misheard. His right hand clenches subconsciously into a fist.

“Let Sam in, Dean.” Jimmy eyes the fist before lifting his head to meet Dean’s angry glare. “Or did you have something else in mind?”

Dean fumbles to release the catch and lets Sam in before he does something he’ll regret. Sam looks from one to the other, Jimmy quiet and fidgeting on the bed, Dean standing stiff and tense and silent. “Is everything okay in here?”

“It’s fine,” Jimmy answers after a pause, during which it becomes obvious that Dean isn’t going to say anything.

“Okay then,” Sam says hesitantly. He glances at Dean, who’s still not saying anything, and with a sigh and a small shake of his head, he crosses to Jimmy with the first aid kit and starts cleaning and stitching the wounds.

“Dean, come here a sec.” Sam’s looking in concentration at Jimmy’s back.

Jimmy tries to turn around but grimaces as he twists.

“The tattoo?” he asks, turning his eyes forward again.

“Yeah,” Dean says from where he’s positioned himself behind Jimmy, next to Sam. He’s still angry, so he’s glad of the distraction, however small. “This is new.” Even if Dean didn’t know for certain that the anti-possession tattoo hadn’t been on Cas’s back just a few days ago, they can tell the raw, red-black, scabbed area on Jimmy’s shoulder had to be no more than two days old.

“Yep. Stings like hell, too.”

“Yeah, it would,” Sam says, standing up and stretching his back.

“Castiel had it done.”

“Why?” Sam asks.

“Hmm?” Jimmy says; he’s starting to droop a little.

“Why the tattoo?”

“Just in case, he said, seeing as how I was around more.”

“He was planning on you sticking around, then?” Sam asks curiously.

“’Planning’ is probably the wrong word,” Jimmy says quietly. “None of this was exactly planned.”

Sam bends down again to rinse the tattoo with clean water and gently smooth on lotion from a small bottle stowed in his shaving bag. “Couldn’t he have healed it?”

“The healing thing,” Jimmy says through teeth clamped tightly together, hands gripping the edge of the bed while Sam works behind him, “It’s not working like it should.”

“The wendigo scar? I assume that’s what that is,” Sam asks, pointing. “And this one down here on your back?” Dean peers over Sam’s shoulder at the small silver scar over Jimmy’s kidney, less fresh than the remnants of the wendigo hunt; he hadn’t noticed it before.

“Yeah.”

Sam dries the skin surrounding the tattoo, throwing the towel across the room and into the sink, and moves to Jimmy’s front to work on the shoulder wound. Dean sits down in the room’s only chair and turns the TV on low, studiously turning his back on what’s happening on the other bed. Everything is blessedly quiet for ten minutes, long enough for Dean to start to calm down, before Sam, being Sam, has to let his curiosity get the better of him.

“How’s this communication thing with Castiel work, Jimmy? Can he see us? Can he hear us? Can we talk to him?” Sam asks as he continues to clean and stitch, eyes intent on his task. He’s moved away from Jimmy’s shoulder and is now working his way along the deep gash on Jimmy’s wrist.

Jimmy hesitates long enough for Dean to turn his head around to look at them fully. Jimmy has his head hanging forward between his shoulders, his body shaking slightly as Sam works. He seems to take in a couple of long, deep breaths before he answers Sam’s question.

“No, it doesn’t work like that. Castiel can’t see or hear anything outside, not even glimpses like I’ll sometimes get. He’s like a voice in my head; he can hear me and I can hear him and that’s it.”

“So if we want to know something, we have to ask you to ask Cas? ‘Cause we’ve got a bunch of questions.” Sam glances up at Dean for confirmation or dissension. Dean doesn’t dissent; Sam takes that as confirmation.

Jimmy nods his head. He winces, thinking better of it. “Yeah. But only Castiel can start it, I can’t. If I want to talk to him and he’s not ready, it’s just bad luck.”

“Is he around now?” Sam asks. Dean thinks it’s fairly obvious he’s not, so he’s not surprised when Jimmy shakes his head.

“Amelia bought me these pants,” Jimmy says inconsequentially into the ensuing silence. “Three pairs. All the same. I hated them, but at least they used to fit.” He runs a finger around the gap at his waist and twists the belt to see the notch, which is visibly two tighter than where it used to be, judging by the creases in the leather. He looks up hopefully. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a burger?”

Dean goes to get it. He needs to get out – whether it’s from the stuffy motel room or out of the stuffy atmosphere, he’s not sure. He pulls away from the drive-thru with his and Sam’s regular orders and a burger for Jimmy that’s coated in all the extras that Cas coats his burgers with on the extremely rare occasions they can get him to eat something. Dean thinks it’s disgusting and he’s sure Jimmy will too. He knows it’s childish. He doesn’t care.

He deliberately dawdles on his errand to ensure that Sam’s finished with all the first aid when he comes back. Sure enough Sam’s sitting on one bed while Jimmy’s resting on the other, his back against the pillows and the wall, his knees drawn up to his chest. They’re talking, and Sam seems to be filling Jimmy in on some of the events since they last saw him, which, given the whole raising Lucifer thing, should take a while. Jimmy’s nodding as if he already knows a lot of it.

Jimmy’s holding a huge mug that smells like cheap peppermint tea; it’s one of Sam’s patented cures for blood loss. Lots of tea. It’ll be full of sugar and sickly sweet too. There’s a bottle of pills on the nightstand, and Dean briefly wonders if Cas’s addictive personality traits are really his own or actually Jimmy’s. He thinks he’ll hide the pills when he can do it without raising suspicion, just in case.

Dean crosses to his duffel, pulls out a bottle of bourbon, and finds glasses for him and Sam. Jimmy pouts when Dean tells him he can’t have any with the drugs Sam’s given him. Sam frowns at Dean like he’s a misbehaving ten year old and gets Jimmy a glass. And speaking of misbehaving ten year olds, Dean absolutely does not look like all his Christmases have come at once when he hands out the burgers and Jimmy looks at his and pulls the exact face he was hoping for.

“Really?” Sam says, frowning at him again. “You got him a Casburger?”

Sam grabs Jimmy’s burger. “Wrong one,” he says to Jimmy, before intentionally kicking Dean on the shin and swapping the Casburger with Dean’s bacon cheeseburger. Oh well, Dean thinks, chomping down on the gooey mess that’s now his, at least it made him forget for a while.

Dean drags a chair round to sit on it backwards, leaning forward with his arms on the chair back. “So Jimmy, you want to tell us what’s going on with Cas and you?” He waves his arm theatrically.

Sipping his tea, Jimmy looks at Dean over the top of his mug, before carefully setting the mug on the cheap, tatty nightstand. He hangs onto his burger and mumbles his way through mouthfuls of food. He turns his head so that he’s actually talking to Sam, not Dean. Dean thinks it’s petty, but he can hardly complain.

“Castiel has always been able to talk to me if he wanted to. He used to ask me stuff occasionally. Practical stuff. It wasn’t often, and it was never talking, like a real conversation. Not until after Lucifer rose.” Jimmy takes another bite of his burger. “After that, he started talking to me more. From my perspective, everything seemed fine; it seemed great in fact, but it really wasn’t. By the time he’d realized, it was too late.”

“Too late?” Sam prompts as Jimmy stops to lick tomato juice from where it’s leaking out of the side of his burger bun.

“He doesn’t have the control he used to have when he had Heaven to call on. I started coming through at inconvenient times,” Jimmy says, eyes flicking briefly in Dean’s direction. “But he can get it back.”

“How?” Dean asks impatiently when he decides Jimmy is taking too long to wipe sauce and grease from his face before taking another bite of his burger.

Dean’s sure Jimmy deliberately takes his time before answering. 

“There’s a ritual he can do, to put everything right, but he needs some Heavenly artifact thing. And the demons have it. Castiel was trying to get it when he got jumped.” Jimmy takes another pause and another mouthful, and Dean regrets getting the food before getting Jimmy to talk.

“Don’t you mind?” Sam asks. “If Cas comes back?”

Jimmy gives Sam a doleful look. “Hell, no. Castiel is a pain in the ass sometimes, but I like him, and he does a lot for me. And, after all, only he can stop the apocalypse.”

“What do the demons want with the artifact?” Dean asks, giving Sam an impatient look that he ignores.

“Not only it, but me as well. Castiel says this thing’s the thing to have if you want control over an angel and their vessel.” Jimmy finishes his burger at last and crunches the wrapper into a ball. “The demons you met when you picked me up have the artifact and started some ritual of their own, but Castiel got away before they could finish. Trouble is, he says he used his last bit of power getting us out, and now that we’ve switched over, he can’t get back.”

“So he can get back when he’s recharged his mojo batteries?” Dean picks up on the point desperately.

“He can’t recharge,” Jimmy says sadly.

“Oh, great. Isn’t this fine and dandy?” Dean says loudly, standing up and kicking his chair across the room.

“Dean,” warns Sam.

“What, Sam?” Dean says angrily. “Cas should have thought this through. He’s a frigging idiot.”

Jimmy’s face shows disdain. “You’re an asshole, Dean.” Sam gives a small surprised choking noise.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Jimmy doesn’t see the danger signs, or else he’s choosing to ignore them. “Castiel is not an idiot; he didn’t do this on purpose, and he had no way of knowing this was going to happen,” Jimmy winces in pain as he over-enthusiastically points an accusing finger at Dean, getting angrier with every word. “He just wanted company. You only want him around when you need something to help with your stupid, doomed plan to kill Lucifer or when you want to…”

“Enough! Just stop, Jimmy.” Dean quickly puts a stop to Jimmy’s rant before Jimmy says something in front of Sam that Dean’s going to regret. Jimmy’s panting hard and Sam looks a bit taken aback. “You don’t know anything,” Dean says. “We want him around. He’s the one that keeps disappearing for days on end. We want him here.”

“Have you told him that?”

“I shouldn’t have to. He should know.”

Jimmy leans forward, seemingly oblivious now to the pain in his shoulder as he defends Castiel and rails against Dean. “How Dean? How will he know? Castiel is still working out what to make of his own feelings, let alone trying to second-guess yours. He’s confused and miserable. Did you even know that?” Anger spent, Jimmy flops back onto the pillows. “Damn”. Closing his eyes, he takes a few deep breaths. “Don’t blame him for what’s happened. He didn’t know it would go down this way.”

“He could’ve talked to me. He used to.”

“And things have changed,” says Jimmy, risking a quick sideways glance at Sam. “He doesn’t know that he can still talk to you.”

“Bullshit.”

”Asshole.” And they’re back where they started. “Believe me, I have no desire to be here anymore than you want me here,” Jimmy says with frustration after a pause. “But it’s not really up to me.”

“What you said in the car,” Sam says slowly, “that even if Cas could come back, he might not want to?”

Jimmy nods.

“Can we do anything without his consent?” Sam asks.

“I guess we can try and get the artifact. I know what it looks like. But Castiel is the only one who knows how we use it once we have it; he hasn’t told me. I guess other angels will know.”

“Bottom line - we need this artifact,” starts Sam. “And we can get that without Cas being on board. Another angel isn’t really an option right now; we’re not exactly popular up there. So while we do that, well, I guess we’ll just have to somehow persuade Cas to come back.”

Jimmy nods.

Dean looks at Sam, then at Jimmy as if they’ve gone mad. “Oh, yeah Sam. The artifact that the demons have. This’ll be a walk in the frigging park,” he growls. He leaves the motel room, slamming the door as he goes.

~~xxx~~

Dean’s sitting in the Impala, driver’s door open and tape deck on, when Sam walks over to join him. It’s still only afternoon and the sun’s warm, but not too hot.

Dean looks up and behind Sam. “Where’s Mr. Middle-America?”

“He’s pretty beat and sore. I gave him some more codeine and he’s sleeping.”

“You think he’ll run out on us?” Dean asks, settling his head back on the seat and closing his eyes.

“Not this time. He’s got nowhere to go and he seems more interested in getting Cas back.”

Dean just grunts.

Sam hesitates. Dean can almost hear him thinking, getting up the courage to speak.

Sam eventually asks, “I came out so you can tell me what’s going on with you two, Dean. He wouldn’t. Why’re you giving him a hard time?”

“He’s the one who got pissed at me, Sam.”

“You don’t like him because he’s not Cas. It’s not Jimmy’s fault he’s here. It’s not Cas’s either, come to think of it.”

Dean doesn’t bother giving Sam an answer; he probably didn’t expect one anyway. After a few minutes of awkward shuffling, Sam says, “Just cut him some slack, Dean. S’all I’m saying.”

Sam turns and heads back to the motel room. Dean opens his eyes and watches him go, and when Sam’s closed the door behind him, he grabs the bottle of bourbon from where it rests between his feet, tips the bottle, and takes another drink.

He stares blindly out of the windshield and slams his free hand suddenly on the dash. “I do deserve him. I fucking do,” he whispers.

~~xxx~~

Dean doesn’t stir until Jimmy and Sam start moving around. He’d dragged himself back into the motel room sometime in the small hours of the morning. God only knows how much he actually drank, because Dean lost track. His head is pounding, his mouth is dry and sandpapery. He feels like he’s on a boat in a swell; everything is swaying alarmingly, making him feel sick. He’d come back in determined to try and at least be civil to Jimmy, but he’s not feeling civil to anyone right now, least of all the guy who told him he’s an asshole.

Deciding silence is his best option in his current mood, he makes his way mutely to the bathroom, trying not to comment on the fact that Jimmy is wearing a pair of his jeans and one of his t-shirts. Even though he knows it makes sense (Jimmy’s clothes had been soaked in blood and he’d drown in Sam’s), it just seems much too intimate. Sam and Jimmy both glance up briefly to watch him go past as they continue packing bags. Dean guesses they’re going to be moving on.

By the time Dean is finished in the bathroom, the bags are packed, there’s fresh coffee and muffins on the small table, and Dean feels a little less like he’s going to die at any second. He picks up a coffee gratefully. “You’re awesome, Sam.”

Sam glances over from where he’s shutting down the laptop. “You should thank Jimmy,” he says, and looks as if he’s waiting to see if Dean does (presumably so he can be a proud little brother and he can say to all the other little brothers at some little brother gathering, ‘Oh just look at my big brother Dean. He’s got manners. I’m so proud.’).

Dean hates to disappoint. “You let him go out? What if he’d been spotted? And he’s got a frigging hole in his shoulder, not to mention being light a few pints of blood.”

“I’m right here, you know,” Jimmy interjects, looking annoyed.

Dean looks over at him, then back to Sam. “Yeah, but Sam should know better.”

“It was only the motel reception,” mutters Sam.

Sam shuts the laptop down and changes the subject. “We’re going to keep heading to Bobby’s. At the moment, there are no signs of demon activity; we’ve checked the Internet and talked to Bobby. We don’t know which way to begin artifact-wise, basically. Jimmy needs to rest up, too.”

Dean nods through a muffin. Jimmy does look shattered: he’s tired, drawn, and grey, wincing every time he moves, although he tries (and fails) to hide it.

Dean throws the trash from breakfast in the small can and stretches in readiness for the twelve-hour drive to Sioux Falls. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Jimmy grimace, and he takes the few steps across the room to take the small bag Jimmy has in his hand, thinking he’s pushed himself too far. Jimmy shakes his head, “It’s Castiel,” and puts the heel of his hand to his forehead.

“He wants to know what we’re doing,” Jimmy says, glancing at Sam and Dean before getting a faraway look in his eyes, obviously focusing on an internal conversation of which Dean and Sam only get one side. “… Going to Bobby’s… we’re going to get you back, Castiel… not an option… it’s a fine line between self-sacrifice and suicide, and at the moment, you’re coming down on the wrong side… well, of course I did… that’s not fair, Castiel, and you know it… you’ve hardly given it a chance… Claire is… hang on a minute… I said hang on.” Jimmy moves across the room and locks himself in the bathroom, which completely pisses Dean off. He hangs around the bathroom door, trying to justify eavesdropping, but he can’t; it seems he has more morals than he thought.

When Jimmy comes out of the bathroom fifteen minutes later, Dean raises an eyebrow in query. Jimmy gives a small head shake, looking downbeat. Dean angrily shoves the last of his overnight kit in one of the duffels.

“Jimmy, you going to be good in the car for that long?” Dean asks with a gruff concern that causes both Jimmy and Sam to look at him with surprise that makes Dean feel like a dick.

Jimmy nods in the affirmative, although the expression on his face says he’s looking for the catch in Dean’s apparent sudden interest in his welfare. Dean manages to scrape up a small smile, which only succeeds in making Jimmy look at him even more suspiciously. Fuck it. It’s far too early and he’s far too hung over and what’s the point in trying to be nice if no one takes him seriously. He turns on his heels, grabs one of the bags, and marches out to the car, leaving the motel room wide open behind him for the others to follow.

The car journey is hot, sticky, uncomfortable, and long. Even though Jimmy keeps telling them that he’s okay, they stop frequently, because even Dean can see that he isn’t. He gets greyer as the journey progresses, constantly moving around in the back to get comfortable and to avoid jostling his shoulder. He’s passed out a couple of times, though he says he’s only been sleeping. Dean starts to think there’s little difference between being a hero and being stupid, and he may have muttered it once or twice.

By the time they get to Bobby’s, Jimmy’s barely able to stand upright and put one foot in front of the other. Luckily, Sam had phoned ahead and warned Bobby that they were bringing an invalid - out of Jimmy’s earshot, of course, who would have balked at the word ‘invalid’ – and sheets and blankets are all ready to make up the spare bed upstairs. Jimmy reluctantly accepts Sam’s helping hand on one arm, but shrugs off Dean when he tries to grip the other side.

“I’m fine,” he mutters, stepping with Sam towards the house. Dean glares at him.

Dean leans against the Impala instead, letting Sam and Jimmy get ahead. Bobby comes out to join him, wheeling up to Dean and keeping his eyes on Jimmy the whole time. “It’s weird seeing Cas out of the trench coat,” he mutters to Dean as he spins the squeaky wheels of the chair around to face the house.

“Believe me Bobby, Jimmy is not Cas,” Dean sighs.

Bobby gives him a sharp look, “You okay?”

Dean kicks a stone across the yard and stares towards the house. “What if we can’t get Cas back, Bobby? We need him.”

“We need him, or you need him?” Bobby asks.

“Both I suppose,” Dean admits.

“We’re gonna do everything we can, Dean. We’ll get him back.”

Dean wishes he could believe it.

“C’mon, we should go in.” Bobby waits to make sure Dean’s following before heading into the house. Maybe Sam told him about the stash of bourbon hidden in the trunk.

Bobby’s mixed Jimmy a cocktail of sleeping pills, antibiotics, and pain medication, and he’s fallen into a fitful sleep. Dean and Sam have been taking turns to look in on him occasionally, and he seems to be okay; no fever, no shock, no signs of infection yet. At some point in the middle of the night, Dean finds himself with a drink in hand, standing in the doorway, watching Jimmy sleep; he’s more than aware of the irony. He’s been trying to see something of Cas in Jimmy. And if he squints he can see him while Jimmy’s asleep.

He saw Cas like this once, recently, after they found out the Trickster was really Gabriel and he dicked them around in TV land. Cas had said he was fine, and then promptly passed out in the back seat of the car, the frigging idiot. And despite the fact that a passed-out Jimmy bears a striking resemblance to a passed-out Cas, Jimmy is obviously still not Cas. Dean’s brief instinct to touch and comfort doesn’t last. But he still watches.

Jimmy’s voice, deep and rough from sleep, startles him. “I’m not him, Dean.”

“I know. I’m well aware,” he looks away, anywhere but at Jimmy.

There’s a pause before Jimmy speaks again, during which Dean wonders if he should leave, but he’s surprised to find that he actually wants to stay. “If you feel like that, why don’t you tell him?”

“He knows.”

There’s another pause, then Jimmy lets out a disbelieving snort. “He honestly doesn’t, Dean.”

Jimmy levers himself up on to one elbow. “Don’t you get it?”

“Get what? Why don’t you tell me what it is I’m not getting, Jimmy.”

Jimmy stares at Dean for nearly two full minutes before flopping back down onto the bed. “He really does deserve better,” Jimmy says.

“Fuck you,” Dean says angrily, turning to leave. Before he can, there’s a quiet moan from the bed. “Jimmy?”

“It’s Castiel,” Jimmy says in a quiet hiss, and pointedly adds, “Shut the door on your way out.”

Dean closes the door with a scowl, but he doesn’t go far. He can’t hear much, but the door is quite thin and doesn’t fit properly in its frame, so he can hear bits and pieces without the stigma of intentionally trying to. Sam has come up the stairs and appears to one side of him, and Dean motions for him to be quiet.

“… It’s selfish, Castiel. What about me?... Claire, then… they’re your family… there’s still things for you to do here… I can’t… Lucifer… I don’t know what happens then… I don’t want to be here either… whatever you want to happen… then forget about Dean… you still have a role to play, and we want you back…” The pauses between Jimmy speaking are long, and from Dean’s point of view, completely silent. He only knows the conversation’s over when he hears a last expletive: “Damn!” When that’s closely followed by the sound of something wooden, probably the chair, being thrown across the bare floor, he decides to leave the door shut. Dean takes Sam’s elbow and leads him back downstairs, avoiding the third step down that has the world’s worst creak.

Sam pours them both a drink and wipes a hand over his face. “What do you want me to say, Dean? If the ‘duty’ argument doesn’t get through to Cas, I’m not sure what will. And if he’s as miserable as Jimmy says, surely he knows he can stay with us? I mean, he’s welcome, right?”

“Of course he’s welcome, Sam. How can you think otherwise? You, of all people.” Dean stares at a spot on the wall, which might be a spider (but it’s not moving, so he’s not entirely sure).

“Maybe Jimmy’s right then. Maybe Cas actually needs to hear it.”

“How, Sam? Unless you hadn’t noticed, we can’t talk to him. I’d tell him anything he wanted to hear if I could. Crap, I’d tell him I loved him if it’d get him back.”

“You what?” says Sam, startled.

“Platonically, obviously,” Dean says, backtracking quickly.

“Obviously,” Sam says.

Dean scowls and Sam finishes his drink, levering himself off the counter and stretching.

“How about, for now, you just lay off Jimmy?” Sam suggests on his way out. Dean doesn’t bother answering.

~~xxx~~

Dean wakes up on the blanket and cushion nest he’d made for himself on the den floor to the sound of quiet rustles and rattles from the kitchen. He can tell that whoever’s in there is making an effort to be quiet, but the gurgle of the coffee machine and the scrape of cutlery on crockery can’t be altogether avoided. Bobby’s still snoring softly from the bed he’s got set up across the room, his empty wheelchair casting strange shadows as the sun filters through the too-thin curtains.

Dean lies there for a while, just listening to a mumble of what can only be Sam and Jimmy’s voices. He can’t make out words, but he can hear the ease of the conversation, the low tones, the occasional amusement. Sam’s good at this stuff, at interacting with normal people. Dean forgets that Jimmy, below a very thin surface, is just a normal guy; a civilian. For all that, Jimmy knows more than he wants to about hunting and monsters and angels and demons; he’s involved in a way he’d rather not be, but he’s still that guy from Pontiac with the wife and kid, the regular job, going to church on Sunday, rarely drinking anything stronger than beer.

He determines that this morning, he’s going to make an effort with Jimmy; not just because of Cas, but because he’s starting to think the guy’s got balls, and maybe, just maybe, Dean has been a bit of a dick. He didn’t get to know him very well the last time they met, and they’ve been at odds from the get-go this time around. He’s not quite sure how to do it, but he’s sure they must have something in common.

He doesn’t really get a chance to try until after lunch. After everyone’s up and fed, they separate according to their strengths. Sam and Bobby are searching high and low on the Internet and making phone calls, trying to find signs of the demons that have the artifact. Dean got told fairly early that there was nothing much he could do to help, and he’s more than happy to go and tinker with the cars in the junkyard; Bobby’s got an old truck he’s doing up out back that Dean wants to toy with. Jimmy’s been making himself useful to everyone with anything that doesn’t hurt his shoulder or his wrist or make him too tired. He’s already made breakfast and lunch, and he’s even done Bobby’s book-keeping and quarterly tax forms; Dean has never seen Bobby look so happy. It’s not long after clearing away the lunch detritus before Jimmy’s out offering his services to Dean.

It’s not an offer of peace, not by a long shot. Jimmy doesn’t look particularly as if he wants to be there; Dean suspects Sam sent him out.

Dean tries not to look too doubtful, remembering his resolution from the morning. “What can you do?” he asks, sure he can find Jimmy something to do, even if it’s just polishing the leather upholstery.

“With a car this age, just about anything. It’s not that complicated,” Jimmy says, surprising Dean. Jimmy peers into the engine, pulling out a loose wire and grimacing at the state of the contacts before putting it back. “What are you doing?”

“Just tinkering. Cleaning the electrics, spark plugs, change the oil, air filter – see if I can get it to run a little easier for Bobby.”

Jimmy rummages in the toolbox and pulls out a spark plug spanner. “Tinkering, I can do.” He gives Dean a small, wary smile that Dean acknowledges with a tentative one of his own. Temporary truce offered and accepted.

It’s by no means comfortable, though. There isn’t the easy banter that Jimmy seems to have developed with Sam; long silences, with both at work on their own end of the engine, are the norm.

“My dad taught me about cars,” Dean tries one time. He knows it’s lame.

“One of the priests taught me,” replies Jimmy, dutifully, before elaborating. “My mom died in an accident when I was four. My little sister and I were brought up in an orphanage run by the church.”

Dean grunts and turns back to the bundle of wires in his hand; he is not going to bond with Jimmy over dead moms. He can feel Jimmy’s eyes linger on him momentarily, probably wondering what the hell just happened, before turning away with an audible sigh. Dean doesn’t try again.

It’s Jimmy who brings up Cas. “Dean… I’m sorry if you were upset about what I said. About you… and Castiel,” he adds, as if Dean wouldn’t know what he was talking about.

Dean stops working, his hands still, but he doesn’t acknowledge in any other way that he’s listening.

Jimmy carries on. “It’s just… you’re a one-night stand kind of guy, right? That’s what he says. Well, sort of. I’m paraphrasing.” Jimmy pauses, and anyone that knows Dean better would be warned off by the silence and the stillness of his posture. “I didn’t mean he deserves better than you necessarily, just that he deserves better than that.” Jimmy trails off nervously, belatedly catching on to the body language signals Dean’s leeching through his every pore. “Um… don’t you think?”

Somewhere in the back of Dean’s conscious mind, a little voice is buzzing, telling him that punching an injured man is wrong. It’s enough to stay his hand, but god, he wants to punch Jimmy in the face right now. Instead, he stands up straight and points a finger aggressively.

“Not that this is any of your frigging business, Jimmy, but that is not what’s going on here.”

“Dean…”

“This is not a discussion, Jimmy,” Dean says, proffering his darkest glare, before dropping his tools loudly on to the bench, turning back to the house and starting to stride that way.

“Castiel?”

Dean’s head whips around to find Jimmy’s. Jimmy is focused at some point behind his eyes, and, although he’s looking at Dean, he’s not really: he’s looking past him and through him.

Dean takes the necessary two steps back to where Jimmy’s leaning on the truck. “Jimmy, if that’s Cas, tell him to sort out his shit and help us get him back here.”

Jimmy gives him a deeply annoyed look. “I really don’t think that will help.” Jimmy starts talking to Cas, which means Dean gets to listen in yet again on half a conversation.

At least Jimmy seems to be getting a little more direct. “I don’t care what you think, we’re going to get that artifact and you are going to help… don’t get pissy with me… it’s selfish, Castiel. I have rights here too… don’t give me that crap. It wasn’t Heaven that promised, it was you… yeah? Well, I don’t want to be here either…” The conversation between Jimmy and Cas seems to go on for ages, with long gaps on Jimmy’s side. Dean hates it: he hates that he doesn’t know what Cas is saying, he hates that he can’t hear his voice or talk back. He chews, frustrated, at his lower lip.

Eventually, they start talking about the demons. “We’re looking for them now… I don’t think we should wait that long… yeah, but three days, Castiel… no, we won’t cross that bridge when we come to it; someone already tried that one on me, I know what that means… what about the ritual – the sigils?... there might not be a later, Castiel… Castiel?”

Jimmy sighs and rubs his forehead with two long fingers, easing the skin over the bone in small, soothing, circular movements. “Well?” Dean says, impatiently.

“I think…” Jimmy pauses and gazes into space. ”I think the bastard’s been lying to me. He said we have time. We don’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s telling us to wait for signs of the demons; that it might take days. I think that’s wrong. He’s a horrific liar. I think he wants us to go slowly so that it will be too late to bring him back; that way, he doesn’t have to choose. Dean,” Jimmy says heatedly, “I don’t want to be here. This isn’t my life.”

Dean grips Jimmy’s arm a little too roughly, not apologizing when Jimmy grimaces, as he pulls him along towards the house. Bobby and Sam look up at them simultaneously as the screen door clatters shut behind them. Dean doesn’t wait or waste time with preamble.

“We need to move. We don’t have the luxury of waiting for the demons to show anymore.”

“What happened?” Sam asks, standing from the armchair.

“Cas showed; Jimmy thinks he doesn’t have long. Do we have any signs to work on for where the demons are?” Dean directs the question to both Sam and Bobby.

Sam’s the one who comes back with a disappointed, “Nothing. But,” he continues, “We’ve found the ritual, the one that gets Cas back in control of his vessel.”

“So we don’t need Cas’s help to get him back?” Dean asks. He’s stunned, because that would be an awesome piece of good luck. Jimmy’s practically doing a victory jig on the spot.

”Yep,” Bobby confirms. “We just need that artifact.”

In the resulting silence, Jimmy’s the first one to speak. “Then we need bait.”

“No,” Dean says automatically.

“Then what would you suggest, Dean?”

“Jimmy’s right,” Sam interjects unwillingly, “Jimmy’s the only thing we’ve got that the demons want.”

“It’s a bad idea. If the demons get Jimmy, they’ve also got Cas.”

“If you’ve got a better plan, I’m all ears,” says Bobby sarcastically.

After an hour of arguing and tossing options around, they can’t think of anything else that has the remotest chance of working. Sam and Bobby are too logical for Dean’s liking, and Jimmy’s adamant that this is what needs to be done and isn’t even trying to think of another way of doing it. Jimmy’s obviously just glad to have a plan, any plan, which means he gets out of here, however stupid that plan may be.

After a while, the planning pow-wow breaks up. Bobby goes to forage around in the den, looking for some electronic tracking gizmo thing he swears he has somewhere, muttering to himself all the while as if a running commentary will help him find it. Dean packs the car and cleans the weapons. Sam and Jimmy start cooking up dinner in Bobby’s kitchen, which Dean finds scarily domestic and surely a waste of urgent time.

“Really, Sam. Dinner? We haven’t got frigging time for your Julia Child act.”

“Have you seen him, Dean?” Sam moves his eyes to indicate that Dean should look behind him where Jimmy is sitting at the kitchen table, doing something with carrots. “He’s wasted. He needs to eat. You need to eat.” Sam pauses. “We all want Cas back, y’know,” he says quietly.

Dean gives in, even though he is itching to get going. Dean knows he’ll end up eating frigging vegetables, too.

Dean takes a beer and settles on the top step of the porch. He’s edgy and impatient and there’s not nearly enough alcohol in the beer to take that edge off. He holds the beer bottle neck loosely between his fingers as he stares out into the scrap yard, the moonlight casting bright spots on the old metal, and he fidgets away his last quiet five minutes. He looks at his watch. They really, really need to go; it’s been nearly two hours since they made the call on what they were going to do.

He hears the screen door creaking open and looks back to see Jimmy framed against the light coming through the door. Jimmy stands on the step next to him, a beer in his hand. “Dinner’s up. Sam’s serving now.” Jimmy looks down at Dean, then back up to the salvage yard. “It’ll work you know. Stop worrying.”

Dean looks at his profile, and can’t keep the sarcasm out of his tone. “Yeah, I know Jimmy. We’ll be fine. We always are. Everything just goes great for us all the time.”

Jimmy looks at Dean. “Just so you know, I really want him back, too.”

“Yeah. A little too eagerly. But Cas?” he asks, turning his head and looking up at Jimmy. “What does he want?”

Jimmy answers quietly. “It’s complicated.” Jimmy hesitates and laughs self-consciously. “I’m a little confused, Dean. So I’m just going to ask you – what are your intentions towards Castiel?”

Dean splutters on his beer. “What are you - his dad?”

“Maybe more like his big brother,” Jimmy says, suddenly deeply serious. “You know how that is, right? The ‘if you hurt him, I’ll hurt you’ speech? The thing is, Dean, Castiel is waiting for the day that you don’t call him for help on a hunt, or for you to change your phone number without telling him.”

“Did Cas tell you that, or is that just what you think?” Dean asks churlishly.

Jimmy looks vaguely annoyed. “I don’t know what to think. So tell me it’s not true. Tell me what he’s supposed to think when the poster boy for ‘screw them and leave them’ suddenly wants to screw him?”

“Why do you even care, Jimmy?”

“Because I’m forcing him back into this life, and whatever you might think about me, I do actually want him to be happy,” Jimmy says.

“None of us are ever likely to be happy.”

“Then I don’t want him to be alone.”

“So you can feel less guilty?” Dean runs his hand through his short, spiky hair. “I think I should talk this out with Cas, not you.”

“Well, yeah, preferably. But will you?”

Dean looks up and stares at the sky. “You know what? We’ve had this conversation already.” He pokes Jimmy in the chest with an outstretched index finger as he gets to his feet. “You know hardly anything about Cas or about me, so keep your nose out of our business, and I’ll keep mine out of yours.” He tosses his beer bottle in the trash can on the porch with a clatter, rises and turns, and takes two steps towards the house.

He hears Jimmy asking from behind his back. “He asks about you, Dean. What should I tell him?”

“You tell Cas whatever you like, Jimmy. I’m sure you will anyway.”

Dinner is stilted and uncomfortable. Bobby and Sam exchange glances across the table that Dean knows he’s supposed to see but both he and Jimmy are studiously ignoring.

When they finish eating, Dean asks Jimmy (in a voice that’s a long way from friendly), “Cas been in touch recently? We should tell him what we’re doing.” He pours himself a cup of coffee from the pot, getting his nose in close to check how stewed it is before he drinks it.

“Not since... ” Jimmy finishes his sentence with a vague wave of his hand.

“How about you give it a try?” Dean yanks his chair away from the table.

“Take it easy, Dean,” Sam says, tiptoeing around his brother’s mood.

“If he needs to get in touch, he will, Dean,” Jimmy matches Dean’s aggression with a low voice that’s almost, but not quite, at Castiel’s level.

“Guys…” Sam starts.

“Can it, Sam,” Dean interrupts before Sam can finish. His eyes are still locked on Jimmy.

Sam stands up from where he’s leaning on the kitchen counter and waves a hand. “You know what?” he asks loudly, commanding they pay attention by the tone of his voice, and they both turn to look at him. “Cas is in trouble! We’re supposed to be working out how to save him, and you two are going at it, trying to work out which one of you is his bestest BFF? Well it sucks. Get a grip. Toss a coin for all I care. But in five minutes you better both be at the car, civil, and ready to leave.” Sam stalks stiffly out of the kitchen. Bobby makes a few embarrassed noises and follows.

Dean looks at Jimmy. Jimmy looks at Dean. “Truce?” Jimmy suggests, not actually managing to look as if he means it.

“Fuck no,” Dean says after a minute of uncomfortable staring, storming out of the room and out of the house.

Jimmy catches up to them as they wait by the car; Dean, Sam, and Bobby all in yet another argument. “Dean…” Sam starts to explain yet again why the plan has to go down this way.

“Don’t ‘Dean’ me, Sam. And you, shut up,” he says aggressively, pointing a finger at Jimmy as he opens his mouth to speak. “The bait idea was bad enough, but now you’re saying we actually have to let Jimmy get taken by the demons? I can’t believe you’re even suggesting that. There’s two of us, one demon-killing knife, and no Cas. And Jimmy? Well, Jimmy’s a scrawny salesman in a cheap suit, and even if he didn’t have that hole in his shoulder, he couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag.”

“I can fight, Dean.”

“Yeah? Well, the last time we met you, you were being pummeled by a girl demon, and when we picked you up this time, you didn’t look like you fought that well.”

“There were six of them! I’d like to see you do better. Castiel taught me how to fight.”

“Guys…” Sam flails a hand ineffectively, and Dean sees it out of the corner of one eye, but both Dean and Jimmy completely ignore him.

“Cas taught you? Well, that’s a laugh, ‘cause he could do with some lessons himself.”

Jimmy’s expression darkens even further and his voice lowers to dangerous. Dean leans away from Jimmy as Jimmy inches deeper into his face as he forces the words out. “Castiel is a soldier, and he’s damned good at what he does. He may not know how to handle a gun, but he’s taken down more than you’ll ever know with his sword in close combat. So you show him some respect.”

Dean’s first reaction is to fight back, to snipe and counter and aim to hurt with more words, but he catches Sam’s eye just as he’s about to open his mouth. And that momentary loss of concentration costs him: Jimmy’s fist connects with the underside of his chin with a force that sends him falling back onto the ground; he was already unbalanced from leaning away from Jimmy’s tirade.

“How dare you,” Jimmy says in a much quieter voice, staring down at Dean.

Bobby chuckles.

Dean looks up at him, all hurt pride. “What, old man?” Bobby just chuckles some more. Dean glances at Sam, who just shrugs, but there’s a small smile pulling at his mouth. Right now, Dean’s chin doesn’t hurt quite so much as his pride. Sam reaches down and pulls Dean up. Jimmy’s excused himself by putting himself in the back seat of the car, still obviously irate, shaking, trying surreptitiously to nurse bruised knuckles.

Dean shakes his head slightly. “Okay, let’s get this show on the road then.”

~~xxx~~

They hit the first big town (big enough where no one knows them) an hour later. It’s close enough to Bobby’s if they need to be back there; once out of the protection of the wards at the scrap yard, they’re visible and vulnerable. Jimmy swallows the transmitter Bobby had finally found rummaging around in the drawers in the den: it’s the size and shape of a penny, and Jimmy chokes on it as it goes down. Sam checks it on the GPS tracker on his laptop and gives a nod.

They get two rooms at the motel instead of one. Sam and Dean always share a motel room (no need to mess with tradition right at this moment), giving Jimmy his own.

In Dean and Sam’s room, Sam has his laptop open with the steady ping of Jimmy’s transmitter, stationary, meters away from them. Without the wards, Jimmy might as well have a bright green fluorescent target painted on his back, so they’re really hoping they don’t have to wait long. That’s all assuming the demons are paying attention, of course.

When the change in tone of the transmitter moving breaks the tedious silence, Dean has to be grabbed on the forearm by Sam to stop him from charging automatically out of the motel room. Shit. He wasn’t thinking about the stake-out. He was thinking about Cas. He nearly made a stupid rookie mistake. Sam looks at him in annoyance and doesn’t let go of his arm until the transmitter’s a good fifty meters away.

It takes all Dean’s willpower to keep the Impala to a speed that tracks the demons vehicle but doesn’t gain on them. Sam’s got the laptop on his knee as they head towards the downtown area.

“Turn left up here,” Sam says, watching the screen, “Then right. Whoa, they’ve stopped. Pull over a minute.” Dean pulls into the shoulder and stops, the engine idling. Sam waits a couple of minutes before speaking again. “They’ve parked. The transmitter’s moving again but slowly. Walking pace. Drive on and let’s park.”

Dean drives where Sam tells him. They can’t see the demon car at all, but they’re next to a tall building, maybe fifteen stories high, give or take. There’s an entrance to the basement garage, but it needs a key to get in. Sam nods towards the building, “They’re in there,” and he doesn’t look happy. The transmitter will give them a two-dimensional coordinate, not a three-dimensional one: they know Jimmy’s in that building, they even know what corner he’s in, they just don’t know which frigging floor he’s on.

“Let’s go,” Dean mutters, reaching into the car to pull out their weapon collection. Sam picks up his half.

“You start at the top,” Dean tells Sam, “I’ll start at the bottom. Text if he moves. Text if you find him. Don’t call.” Sam nods.

They run to the building and make short order of opening the fire exit. The interior door locks are a cinch with the electronic key passes that Ash gave them years ago.

The ground floor is all reception and lobby area; there’s nothing here, and there are no rooms or nooks or crannies to hide in. Dean heads up a flight to the first floor, taking two steps at a time. There is nothing on this floor but offices: endless cubicles of white plastic tables and white plastic filing cabinets with standard, cheap desktop computers. There’s a light on in one office, but no noises except the clack-clack of fingers on a keyboard. Dean sidles along that way anyway, but it’s just someone working late. The next floor is the same, minus the keen office worker. Dean checks his watch. They’ve been in the building for nearly fifteen minutes. A lot can happen in fifteen minutes. He knew this was a bad idea.

Dean’s heart is pounding with increasing anxiety as he heads to the third floor. Nothing. Fuck. He texts Sam. Sam’s reply comes; there were twelve floors, and he’s just moving on to the ninth. Dean takes a moment to stop and think; if someone thought they might search in this pattern, they’d set up base in the middle. If someone thought that, of course.

He texts Sam back. ‘I’m going to 6 and working down. You go to 7 and work up.’

Dean charges up the flights of stairs to the sixth floor. Nothing. God, he was so certain. Or if not certain, at least hopeful. Then he feels the vibration of the phone in his hand and checks Sam’s text. He’s got them.

Dean runs up the next flight, and Sam’s waiting for him just inside the office space in a small, poorly lit corridor. This floor is meeting rooms, all board-room type layouts, with big desks surrounded by lots of chairs and frosted glass walls. Only one of the rooms is well lit. They can make out shapes moving around inside the room, but not any detail. There’s the flickering light of candles as well as the built-in office lights. They can see the shapes of two people standing in the room, but more may be sitting. Dean can hear voices chanting, the sound filtering out of the open door.

One of the men in the room comes into view in the doorway. He’s carrying a small bowl, and, as Dean and Sam watch, he takes out some thick red liquid onto his finger tips and flicks it at the table, chants a few words, and moves away to his right and out of sight.

This is not good. Whatever the ritual is, having picked up Jimmy, they obviously wasted no time in starting. Dean points with his fingers to the door of the room and Sam nods. Crouching low, they move quickly across to the door. If they can see in, the people inside will be able to see out, so they keep low, below natural eye level.

Dean crouches even lower and peers around the doorframe and into the room. There are four demons, two standing and two sitting. Two of them have blood and bruises on their heads, hopefully signs that Jimmy got in a couple of good ones. Although the point was for Jimmy to be successfully captured, they’d all decided it would look odd if he put up no fight at all. Dean would probably feel quite proud of him if he actually liked him.

Jimmy’s lying on his back on the table. He’s conscious, but Dean can tell he’s not fully focused. A rivulet of blood is running from his forehead over his cheek and nose to drip slowly onto the table, pooling around his face, making a sticky mess of his hair. Jimmy’s arms are stretched out to each side of him, and both sitting demons has hold of one thin, pale forearm, gripping it below the elbow. Blood is sluggishly pulsing from a cut in each of Jimmy’s wrists and dripping into small bowls set on the floor, and Dean blanches; there’s already a scary amount of blood in those bowls.

Jimmy is looking straight at the door, and Dean can tell he’s spotted him by the way Jimmy’s eyes focus on his briefly. The demon to Jimmy’s left is likely to notice him, too, and Dean tries to duck lower, but he’s pretty much as low as he can get. Jimmy seems to realize what Dean’s doing; he turns his head to face the demon and spits in its face while pulling and trying to twist his arm from its hold. The demon turns and snarls, gripping Jimmy’s arm so hard that Dean can almost see the bruises forming under its fingers. When it lifts its other hand to hit Jimmy hard across the face, Dean flinches in sympathy. But the demon is now intently focused on Jimmy and isn’t looking in the direction of the door.

The demon they saw before is walking around the table with his own bowl of blood, stopping regularly to place his fingers in, chant, and flick blood at Jimmy, leaving red spots on the pale grey t-shirt. There’s some kind of gold stick the size of a pencil in the bowl, and the demon stirs the blood with the stick each time before he dips his fingers in.

Dean ducks back behind the wall, looks at Sam, and holds up four fingers. Sam nods and hefts the dagger to the ready. Dean counts down three-two-one on his fingers, and on one, they both charge into the room.

One demon is dispatched immediately, caught by surprise, the life sparking and fizzling out of him. Dean goes for the demon chanting as the other two head for Sam. Dean ducks his head and charges in, catching the demon on the chest and making him stagger, but not bowling him over like he’d hoped. He makes a grab for the bowl with the small gold pencil in it, but the demon moves his arm out of reach; Dean misses and overshoots, stumbling past the demon. He hears Sam yelp in pain but he can’t afford to look. He pulls out his gun and shoots at the demon, aiming to smash his elbow so he’ll drop the bowl. It won’t kill him, or even hurt him especially, but it should slow him down. The shot hits home: the demon drops the bowl and Dean desperately scrambles for the artifact. He hears the crackle of another demon being killed by Ruby’s knife; at least that means Sam’s okay.

Dean’s hand reaches the gold pencil, and he just grasps it in his fingers before a foot stomps on his wrist, making his hand open in reflex, and he drops it again.

“I’ll take that,” a smooth voice says.

Dean doesn’t even need to look up (he’d recognize that fucking voice anywhere), but it’s Jimmy that says, “Zachariah,” through a shaky, fearful breath. Zachariah’s foot pushes down harder on Dean’s wrist, and Dean feels the bones starting to give. He could really do without a broken wrist right now.

“No, I’ll take it.” The voice is that of the chanting demon; Dean’s not sure how he’d forgotten it was still there.

Being in the middle of a Heaven versus Hell grudge match is never a good idea, but it has the advantage of distracting Zachariah so that Dean can pull his hand out from under his foot, roll to one side, and stand up. Zachariah and Nameless Demon are facing off against each other, one end of the boardroom table separating them. Zachariah still has the artifact in his hand, twirling it between his fingers like a miniature marching baton. It sparkles, as if there’s something alive inside.

A quick look around shows no other demons left alive. Sam’s only a few feet away from Dean and holding his shoulder stiffly. Jimmy’s standing next to Sam, hugging both arms in tight against his torso, the t-shirt he’s wearing slowly going a dark plum color as the blood radiates out from the cuts on his wrists and soaks in.

Dean weighs up his odds of both getting Jimmy and the artifact out of there, and it’s basically zilch; the whole thing was a bust.

He edges around the table towards the door and away from Zachariah and the demon. Sam and Jimmy quickly catching on, both start to head towards the door as well. Both the demon and Zachariah notice them, though neither seems willing to redirect their focus from each other. Zachariah looks away from them and back to the demon.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be back for Castiel,” he says. He gives a little arrogant smirk. “See you later, boys.” Zachariah disappears in a little whooshing noise along with the artifact.

The demon snarls at them in frustration, but rather than attack, it throws its head back and leaves its host, the black stream of smoke curling rapidly out and disappearing into a vent as the human body collapses with a soft thump onto the office carpet.

It’s a few seconds before they realize it’s over and they remember to move. Sam rushes over to check the ex-demon’s host and nods; the guy’s alive. One for the good guys. Dean rips the arms off the dress shirt one of the dead demons is wearing and wraps them tightly around Jimmy’s wrists. When they soak through too quickly for Dean’s liking, he does it again, and then again until he’s satisfied he’s made some progress in stopping the bleeding.

When he’s done, Jimmy shrugs away from Dean’s hands. Fine. If the guy wants to face-plant onto the carpet, that’s his problem, not Dean’s.

“What now?” Dean leaves Jimmy to cross to Sam, waving an arm to encompass the world in general and all the bad shit in it. “We don’t have the frigging artifact. And even worse, now Zachariah has it.” He turns to Jimmy. “In fact, how the hell do you know Zachariah?”

Jimmy shrugs. “I get bits of Castiel’s dreams… nightmares, actually.” He winces and sighs, perching one buttock on a small bookcase. “Let’s just say Zachariah features a lot.”

Dean kicks a chair clear across the room, narrowly missing the back of Sam’s legs. “I knew I hated that douche. I’m going to kill that bastard one day.”

Sam clears his throat. “Let’s get out of here. And I know we only just got here, but as soon as we pick up our stuff from the motel, I’m driving back to Bobby’s.”

Jimmy stays in the car with Dean while Sam packs. Jimmy’s sleeping, his head resting against the back seat, eyes closed, a livid purple bruise beginning to color his cheek where the demon hit him, and bright, clean bandages just peeking out from the cuffs of his borrowed shirt.

Sliding into the driver’s seat, Dean reaches over and gives Jimmy a light shake. He wakes up, grey-skinned and confused. He focuses on Dean’s face slower than Dean would like, but eventually acknowledges him with a low grunt.

“Jimmy, you need to tell Cas, somehow, that Zachariah has the artifact. We need to know what the angels want with the artifact and with Cas.”

Intelligence creeps slowly into Jimmy’s eyes, replacing the disorientation that heavily sat there seconds ago.

“Zachariah. The angels.” Jimmy closes his eyes and leans back into the seat for so long that Dean thinks he’s lost consciousness again, but his eyes open and his voice is anxious but resigned. “I already know what they want. The angels don’t really need the artifact, only that they don’t want Castiel to have it. Like this,” he waves a hand at himself with the slightest movement, looking as if even that is too exhausting, “Castiel is helpless. They capture him… me… and they’ll do the angel equivalent of hung, drawn, and quartered - leave him hanging from the gates of Heaven as a lesson to all the other angels not to rebel.”

“They’ll kill him,” Dean says.

Jimmy’s small laugh is cruel and bitter. “No. Death would be a kindness.”

Finally, Dean remembers to breathe again. “Okay, so that’s not going to happen.”

He turns fully around in his seat to face Jimmy. “Do you know how to get it back?” Jimmy shakes his head. “Then you need to try and get Cas’s attention, and when you do, you tell him we need a way of getting that artifact back from the angels.”

“Dean, I can’t just get his attention…”

Dean fumbles in the pocket of his coat and digs out a small leather wallet. There are five photos in it; he can see Jimmy watching as he picks off the top one. He puts it face up on the back seat next to Jimmy’s leg. It’s a photo Sam took with his phone a couple of weeks ago; it’s just Dean and Cas sitting on a bench, but Cas had been looking at him in a way that Dean rarely caught in real life. Dean had printed and kept the photo. He’s been looking at it a lot lately.

“Find a frigging way, Jimmy.”

~~xxx~~

Back at Bobby’s, the rest of the evening drags in despondency until everyone finally filters off to their beds. Dean stays up, seeing as the chances of him sleeping tonight are nil. He’s not drinking for once; it’s as if things have gotten too bad for even alcohol to solve, so it’s a coffee he’s got in his hand when Jimmy stumbles downstairs and sinks next to him on the couch.

“Castiel is here,” Jimmy opens by way of greeting, keeping his voice low so as not to wake the others.

Dean looks up. “Is he okay? What’s he saying? Why are you even here?”

“Um…” Jimmy starts, a little uncertain, then takes a breath and begins again. “I thought we could talk to him together. We’re pretty dependent on his help getting the artifact back now.”

“He can’t hear me, you said?” Dean says.

“He can’t, but you tell me and I’ll tell him.”

“Oh. Well, tell him to get his feathery ass back here, then.”

“I’m not telling him that.”

“Tell him. It’s how he knows I give a crap.”

“Dean cares about you,” Jimmy paraphrases, and Dean huffs in annoyance.

“Just tell him what I said, Jimmy. Is that so hard?”

So Jimmy does, and after that, he repeats verbatim everything Dean says back to Castiel, though not approvingly; the words are rolling off his tongue like he finds them distasteful. He tells Castiel he’s a dumb son-of-a-bitch. He tells him he’s a stubborn dick. He tells him Sam misses him.

Dean doesn’t look at Jimmy the whole time, because this is frigging embarrassing. It’s like some dumb couples therapy session.

After a few minutes of this, Jimmy shakes his head slowly like it’s not working.

“Maybe I should try?” Jimmy says in a low voice. Dean looks up, and, he’s surprised, for the first time, to see some sympathy on Jimmy’s face.

For some reason, that’s all it takes. Dean blinks away a single tear before it can form, and he turns his head away in the hope that Jimmy doesn’t notice. “I do deserve him, Jimmy,” he murmurs.

At first, Dean thinks Jimmy didn’t hear, because there’s no response. He turns back to face him. Jimmy clears his throat. “Is there something else you want to try saying to him, then?”

“Make him understand how much I love him.” Dean says it without thinking, and now that the words are out, he realizes he really means them. And it wasn’t that hard. He says it again, “Tell him I love him, Jimmy. Do it. Then tell him to get his feathery ass back here.”

Jimmy stares and Dean looks away. He hears Jimmy saying the words, and then there’s a long silence (as far as Dean’s concerned) before Jimmy starts talking again. Then there’s some more about Lucifer, about Jimmy, about Amelia and Claire, about apocalypse and duty. Jimmy gets up and starts pacing and Dean turns to watch. Jimmy rubs his head as if fighting a headache, and holds his hand out flat, giving the universal ‘could go either way’ wriggle of his wrist.

This is the longest Dean’s heard Jimmy talking to Cas, and he doesn’t know if it’s a good sign or not. Bobby’s woken in the next room; Dean heard his breathing change, but he’s staying still and quiet. Dean wonders if he heard him tell Jimmy that he loves Cas. He quickly decides he doesn’t care.

Jimmy walks out of the door and onto the porch, but when Dean goes to follow, he’s waved back. That pisses him off more than anything else, that there are still secrets that Jimmy has with Cas that Dean’s not allowed to know about.

When Jimmy comes back in ten minutes later, he’s back to looking exhausted and grey. “He’s agreed to try.”

Dean is not going to hug Jimmy, but he hopes his face conveys his gratitude.

“There is a way to get the artifact back,” Jimmy says. “But you’re not going to like it.”

Dean sighs. “Why am I not surprised. Tell me.”

“The angels won’t bring it back to Earth, so we’ll have to go to Heaven to get it.”

“I’ll do it,” Dean says, of course.

“It has to be me,” Jimmy says, continuing before Dean has a chance to respond with the automatic ‘no frigging way’ that’s on the tip of his tongue. “It has to be me. Castiel can show me where to go and how to get around, but I can’t tell you in a way that’ll make sense.”

“But you can’t go to Heaven. They’ll get Cas.”

“Castiel will stay here, in this body. Dean, I have to die. It’s the only way I can get in on my own, without him.”

“And what if it doesn’t work?”

“Better to die trying,” Jimmy says, looking at Dean properly for the first time, “Don’t you agree?”

“How long have we got?”

“No more than a day, if we want to be certain. Castiel is getting quieter all the time.”

“Fuck.” Which is Dean’s eloquent way of saying, ‘I agree, but you’re right, I don’t like it’. Judging by Jimmy’s tentative smile, he gets that.

~~xxx~~

Dean’s the only one there in the morning when the phone rings the normal default ring-tone of a cheap burner phone. Sam and Bobby are both out grabbing what they need for the ritual they all hope they’ll get the chance to perform; Jimmy’s upstairs, asleep, trying to get as healthy as he can before he dies, weird as that sounds.

Dean peers around the room to get the direction of the ringing phone and heads into the hall where they’ve hung coats and dumped shoes and shoved other paraphernalia.

Jimmy’s suit jacket is roughly folded on a chair with the suit pants he hasn’t worn since they picked him up. The ringing is coming from the pocket of the jacket. He grabs the phone and glances at the screen for some indication of who might be ringing, but ‘Unknown Number’ is flashing. Of course it is.

As far as he knows, only he, Sam, and Bobby have Cas’s cell number. He answers the call without saying anything.

There’s silence for a fleeting second then a quiet, but confident, voice asks “Uncle Cas?”

‘Uncle’ Cas? Dean tries to work out the voice, which sounds young. He waits for it to say more and he’s prepared to run the risk they’ll hang up. The next word takes him by surprise though. “Dad?”

“Claire?” He says out loud before he’s had a chance to engage his brain.

The voice, Claire, is wary now, and possibly on the verge of running. “Who’s that?”

“It’s Dean. Dean Winchester. How did you get this number?”

Instead of answering, she asks fretfully, “Where’s Cas? Where’s Dad?”

He’s going to have some words with Jimmy and Cas about how Claire is even in contact with them. “They’re not here. Claire, where are you? How do you have this number?”

“Can I come and see them?”

“Where’s your mother?”

“You can’t tell her about Dad and Uncle Cas,” Claire says a little panicky. 

“Why not?”

Claire gives a laugh that’s a little too bitter for a 12 year old. “She’s never forgiven Uncle Cas for taking Dad away, and she’s never forgiven Dad for letting him. If she knew I was still in touch with them, she’d be livid… I’d be grounded for years.” She pauses. “Why have you got their phone? Where are they?”

Dean runs a hand through his hair and down his face. “Sorry, sweetheart. Cas is… well, Cas is sick. He’s not really around to speak to right now, and your Dad’s kinda busy.”

“I’m coming to see them, then. Aunt Ellen can bring me. Mom doesn’t need to know. I stay at Aunt Ellen’s sometimes.”

Dean does a double take. “Ellen? Ellen Harvelle?”

“Yeah. Jo’s teaching me to be a hunter,” Claire says proudly. “Mom doesn’t know that either, by the way, so don’t tell her.”

Awesome. “Yeah, okay. Just get Ellen to call me so we can work something out, okay?”

The voice sounds excited and motivated now that Claire’s got her way, “Sure. See you later.”

“Yeah, sure.” Dean hangs up. Jeez, this is probably not a good idea, but he’ll admit to being a little curious.

He hears the squeak from Bobby’s chair behind him and turns. Bobby’s in the doorway with a lap full of various roots peeking out of a cardboard box, and Dean can see Sam outside, pulling two more boxes from the car. Looks like they got back in time for the party.

“Who was that?” Bobby asks. He’s looking suspiciously at Cas’s phone in Dean’s hand and he also looks like he knows what the answer is to his question.

“You knew!” Dean declares, chucking Cas’s phone on the small table by the couch. He’s not really annoyed, but he thinks he should be.

Bobby shrugs and wheels further into the room, “Claire, then.”

“Yes, Claire. You knew Cas was in touch with Amelia and Claire? You didn’t think you should tell me?”

“Cas asked Ellen, Jo, and me to keep quiet. Said the less people who knew, the safer everyone would be. And you and Sam had other things to worry about. I figured you didn’t really need to know, so what harm was there?”

“Oh, sure, if I took all the things Cas thinks I don’t need to know, I wouldn’t know frigging anything. What else don’t I know that I didn’t need to know, Bobby?”

“Quit sounding like a five-year-old, boy, and deal,” Bobby says, raising his voice and wheeling his chair forward until it’s almost touching Dean’s toes. “You and Sam needed some time to sort yourselves out. None of us knew this would happen. Now go and get me a beer while I sort out this stuff, and presumably, I need to ring Ellen and tell her she’s got a road trip.”

~~xxx~~

It’s an hour since Claire’s phone call before Dean decides he’s going to have to wake Jimmy up and tell him she’s coming. If everything went right for her, if her mom let her go with Ellen, if Ellen was free to bring her over, she could be here in as little as a half an hour. Dean doesn’t have a lot of experience with fathers and daughters, but he figures Jimmy’s going to want a bit of time to make sure he looks less like death warmed up.

He’s been putting it off, there’s no point denying it; there’s a little part of his mind that insists on nudging at the lump of worry he keeps tucked in a corner that Jimmy might change his mind at some point and decide he wants to stay. Claire’s visit is a huge risk.

Jimmy doesn’t look particularly surprised when Dean wakes him and tells him Claire is on her way.

When he comes downstairs, it’s obvious he’s tried to make himself look healthy, and Dean, for once, has some compassion and doesn’t tell him he’s failed miserably. His hair might be neat and clean, his long-sleeved shirt (out of place in the warm weather) might hide the thick bandages on his wrists, and he might have managed to find a pair of jeans that make him look less like a refugee, but nothing is going to hide the too-pale shade of his skin or the dark bruise-like shadows ringing his too-dull eyes.

Ellen doesn’t turn up with Claire until nearly two hours later, by which time Jimmy’s nervous as hell. Dean’s been feeding him a regular supply of whisky to calm him down, despite Sam and Bobby protesting about mixing it with the drug cocktail Jimmy’s already on. Dean’s nervous too, though for different reasons; he has no difficulty in keeping Jimmy company while he drinks.

When Ellen drives up in the truck and Claire leaps out into her father’s arms almost before the truck has stopped rolling, Dean can’t watch. He stares briefly as Jimmy holds Claire against him in a tight embrace, his chin resting on the top of her blonde head, tears silently falling, before Dean turns away from the scene.

Bobby and Ellen stare at him in something akin to pity, like they can read his mind, but it’s Sam who claps a hand on his shoulder sympathetically and steers him into the house. Sam might think he’s subtle, but he’s not; Sam’s useless at subtle. Awesome. Now everyone’s feeling sorry for him.

From the den, Dean can hear the quiet mumble of Jimmy’s and Claire’s voices in the background where they’ve settled themselves on the old wooden bench on the porch, but he can’t make out a word they’re saying. The back of their heads through the window show them close, Jimmy’s dark hair melding into Claire’s bright blonde, Jimmy’s arm wrapped around Claire’s shoulders the whole time.

Sam and Bobby quiz Ellen on what’s been happening. Dean’s listening to Ellen half-heartedly, hating that a conversation that could decide Cas’s future is taking place only a few feet away and he has no control over the outcome.

Sam’s intrigued by Ellen’s story and Bobby is playing catch-up, knowing some of the tale, but not all. 

“Cas showed about three months ago,” Ellen nods towards Bobby. “He wanted to know if we’d look after Amelia and Claire.” She shrugs. “Of course, we said yes, as much as we could, but turns out Amelia wasn’t keen. They moved near us, though, and Amelia accepts all the wards and protections we put up, but other than that… she won’t have anything to do with us. She won’t see Cas, and I guess that’s understandable, given he’s wearing her husband, but the odd time Jimmy’s turned up, she won’t see him, either.

“Claire’s another story, though. She made her mother get the anti-possession tattoo, and she persuaded her mother to let her spend some time with us… apparently we can protect her better than any of her other friends can.” Ellen almost sounds amused and it becomes evident why. “She’s a firecracker, that girl. Reminds me of Jo when she was that age. She wanted us to train her to be a hunter. She’s serious. Uncle Cas …”

“Uncle Cas?” Sam raises an eyebrow and Ellen laughs.

“Yeah. Cute, huh? She’s really taken to him. She doesn’t seem thrown at all by the fact that he looks like her dad. It’s weird but she knows straight away if it’s Cas or Jimmy she’s talking to, even on the phone. I don’t know how she does it.” Dean knows. Dean doesn’t know how people can’t tell.

“So Uncle Cas sat down and had a long talk with her,” Ellen continues, with deliberate, amused emphasis on the ‘uncle’. “He and Jimmy are all for it as long as she just learns to look after herself and her mom and doesn’t actually go hunting. Amelia doesn’t know, though, so let’s keep it that way, huh? She doesn’t know that Claire still sees Cas, either.” Ellen shrugs at that. “Well, she probably does know, but she chooses to pretend not to.”

Bobby looks at his watch and Ellen nods; it’s been nearly an hour. “Nice catching up, boys, but we need to go and you need to… well, good luck. Let me know.”

They all follow her out onto the porch. Claire clings onto Jimmy when they stand up and start to walk to the car, and Dean realizes when they’re half way there that it’s less about hugging her Dad and more about keeping him upright. She keeps shooting him anxious glances that she’s not very good at hiding.

She practically props Jimmy against the hood when they reach Ellen’s truck, and catches Dean’s eye with a less-than-subtle ‘I want to talk to you in private’ wiggle of her eyebrows. He glances at Jimmy, for permission, he supposes; Claire is his daughter, after all. Jimmy shrugs in acquiescence (maybe it’s more a ‘how much worse could it be’ shrug).

“Dean,” Claire starts, when they’re at a distance she obviously feels is comfortably out of earshot of everyone else. She’s talking in a conspiratorial whisper that makes Dean want to smile, but he keeps his face serious because he wouldn’t want her to think he was mocking her, which he wouldn’t be. 

“You’re going to get Uncle Cas back?”

“That’s the idea,” he says warily.

Claire’s eyes are starting to fill with water and she wipes the back of her hand across them to catch the tears before they fall; Dean pretends he hasn’t noticed.

“Dad’s scared about what will happen to me and Mom if Uncle Cas isn’t here.” She gives up on catching the tears that are now running down her cheeks. Over Claire’s head, Dean can see Jimmy starting to fret over Claire’s behavior. He looks as if he’s getting ready to come over to comfort her or rescue her or whatever he thinks is needed, but Dean waves a hand at him to tell him to stay put, which he does, nervously. “I want Dad, but I want Cas back too,” she says quietly, through sobs. And Dean suddenly recognizes the achingly familiar guilt at having to choose; at having to show a preference between two people you love. Hell only knows he’s been there himself.

He gets down on one knee so his head is level with Claire’s. He’s not sure what he’s going to say until it just comes out, and even he nearly convinces himself with the optimistic and hopeful assurances. “Claire, we’re going to fix this, okay? And whatever happens, I’ll come by and make sure you and your Mom are okay, but we’ll get Cas back, and your dad will still be sort-of around, and Cas can let you know how he’s doing. I like your dad and I love your Uncle Cas, and I’m not going to let anything bad happen to them.” So that’d be nothing horribly over and above what had already happened to them, then. Yeah Dean, convincing. He tells his inner voice to shut the fuck up. “You know that right?”

Just when Dean has started parsing the ‘oh my god she’s going to hug me’, Claire hugs him, throwing herself at him and wrapping her small arms around his neck and burying her head into his shoulder. And he finds he doesn’t actually mind, so he hugs her back, pulling a face over her shoulder at the four adults staring at him with expressions ranging from confused to amused to (in Jimmy’s case) relieved.

As Claire and Ellen drive away, Jimmy grabs Dean’s elbow and holds him back as the others walk ahead into the house. “Dean. I haven’t changed my mind.”

“Jimmy, it’s…”

“Shut up for once and listen. Castiel said you were infuriating, but jeez, I had no idea!” Dean thinks he should take offence at that, but doesn’t get a chance to before Jimmy continues. “I know you were worried, but I know Claire is safer with him. I know I’ll never be safe and I’ll never be able to protect my family the way he can. If we get this right, I still get to hear about them, and I’ll get to check on them, even if it’s vicariously. And if it doesn’t work, well, then I know you and Sam and Bobby and Ellen will do what you can.” Jimmy put a hand on Dean’s shoulder in a very Cas-like gesture. “Let’s go get our angel back, shall we?”

“Yeah. And Jimmy… thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” says Jimmy, letting Dean take his weight as they follow the others into the house.

~~xxx~~

Dean can’t join in the discussion about how they’re going to kill Jimmy. He just can’t. It’s bad enough that he has to listen to it as Bobby, Sam, and Jimmy talk in the next room as if it was some abstract, hypothetical puzzle.

“Poison?” Sam’s voice asks clinically.

“No good,” comes Jimmy’s equally clinical response. “It’s still going to be me that comes back, not Castiel. I have to be able to live.”

“Drugs? Heart stoppers and starters?” Bobby this time.

“Too risky. We’d be guessing doses, and some of that stuff has side-effects we have no facilities to deal with.”

Dean leaves the house. He walks into the scrap yard and over to the shed where the Impala’s parked. Picking up the nearest tool, he pops the hood and starts tinkering. The car doesn’t need anything done, not really, but it’s something to take his mind off what they need to do next and all the things that could go wrong.

Out of all of them, there’s no doubt that Jimmy will end up in Heaven when he dies, but right now, that’s not a good thing. Cas will maintain Jimmy’s body for an hour while he’s gone, keeping it in a kind of stasis for Jimmy to come back to. That’ll give Jimmy about a day in Heaven, maybe a little more. According to Jimmy and Cas, if Jimmy doesn’t have the artifact by then, it’ll never happen.

Dean’s still aimlessly tinkering when Sam comes out an hour later, clumsily clapping him on the back to get his attention. He stands up from under the hood and picks up a cloth to wipe the grease off his fingers. Looking up at his brother, he reluctantly asks, “You guys done?”

“Yeah,” Sam says. He’s looking at anything but Dean.

“So what did you decide?” he says, gruffly.

“Drowning.”

“Drowning,” Dean repeats in a quiet monotone, throwing the grease cloth off to one side. “Not a very nice way to go.”

Sam shrugs uncomfortably. “Gives Jimmy a working body to come back to. And, um, he’s weak. He won’t be able to struggle for long.”

No, Dean thinks, probably not. Poor Jimmy.

“When?” Dean asks.

“Now, actually. The sooner the better. We don’t know how much time we have left, but Jimmy says Cas is getting weaker all the time.”

Dean follows when Sam turns and heads back into the house. Sam disappears upstairs and Dean walks into the den. Things have changed somewhat since he left them.

“We need all that stuff for this?” Dean asks Bobby, looking around at the various paraphernalia and repositioned furniture. The den is set up for a ritual, a bowl is in the center of Bobby’s desk, surrounded by several chalk sigils and a collection of ten smaller bowls off to one side. Bobby’s bed has been moved away from the wall, and a sigil is painted around it on the floor.

Bobby shakes his head, chalking yet another sigil, this one joining together the others by the central bowl. “When we get Jimmy alive, we need to go straight into the ritual to get Cas back.”

“Jimmy’s okay with that?”

“It was his idea,” Bobby glances briefly at Dean, then back to his drawing. “Says he doesn’t want to stick around for goodbyes ‘cause it’d be weird’. And with any luck he’ll still be around anyways. Sort of.”

Dean doesn’t answer, stroking a finger idly along the back of one of the old wooden chairs. He hates waiting at the best of times. He hates waiting for stuff like this worst of all. Sam and Jimmy come into the room from wherever they’ve been.

“Ready?” Bobby asks Sam.

“All set,” Sam says without inflection. Jimmy nods next to him. The guy looks scared stiff, but determined.

“Dean?” Sam looks across. He’s about to ask ‘what’ but then he gets it: Sam can’t hold Jimmy down on his own.

“Yeah, Sam. Coming.”

The bathroom is all set up, the large tub full to brimming of body-temperature water. Jimmy strips down to his boxers and t-shirt. “Good luck, boys,” he mutters through teeth that are clattering slightly, in nervousness or illness or both.

“Same to you, man,” says Sam, like he’s waving him off at the bus station.

Jimmy climbs into the tub and Dean is glad when Sam offers to take the head end, allowing Dean the middle; he doesn’t think he can look into Jimmy’s face as he drowns. He’s seen people drown before; even if they want it, they fight it. They can’t help it; it’s instinctive. Seeing Jimmy looking terrified as he struggles and fails and finally succumbs is not a memory he wants to add to his collection. Part of him is scared that all he’ll see is Cas.

Jimmy doesn’t struggle at first. He lies in the tub with his head under the surface for at least forty-five seconds, still and quiet, and Dean knows Jimmy’s holding his breath. Then Jimmy starts to move under his hands, and he can see the muscles in Sam’s arms go taut as he puts more pressure on Jimmy’s good shoulder and forehead to hold him under. Jimmy’s trying to twist and turn his lower body to escape the killing water, so Dean leans further into the tub, holding Jimmy’s hips down flat on the bottom. Both he and Sam are soaking now, as Jimmy thrashes his arms and legs in blind panic, sending water cascading over the sides of the tub and splashing up into the air.

“Sam?” Dean asks, because he doesn’t know if he can do this much longer. Jimmy’s weak and ill and physically it’s easy to hold him down (Dean could probably do it with one hand), but mentally, he doesn’t know if he has the strength to keep this up, that they’ll have to find another way, any other way.

“Not long, Dean,” Sam grunts, in a promise that’s also a plea, so Dean hangs on.

It’s not long. It’s not long at all. Jimmy doesn’t have the strength to fight them and he doesn’t have the strength to fight dying. Gradually, the thrashing and struggling dies away until suddenly, it just stops. Sam moves his hands away gingerly, and Dean follows suit. Dean looks up the length of the tub. Open, staring, very dead blue eyes look up from under a few remaining inches of water towards the ceiling above, face pale and slack. Jimmy’s hands are floating, lifeless, on either side of his hips, the backs just breaching the surface. His t-shirt is hiked up around his chest, showing his too-thin frame, and a few yellowing bruises on his ribs from the activities of the last few days are keeping the wendigo scars company.

[](http://lennyfics.livejournal.com/6066.html)

Dean stares. He can’t help it. It’s horrible. It’s awful. It’s his Cas. His. Because Jimmy’s not there anymore. Jimmy’s in Heaven.

“…Dean!” Dean suddenly realizes that Sam’s been talking to him, probably has been for a few seconds, and he brings his mind back to the present. “Help me get him out,” Sam says urgently, reaching under Jimmy’s arms and starting to haul him out. Jimmy’s head lolls forward, coming to rest on his chest as Dean finally gets with the program, reaching under Jimmy’s knees to lift his lower body out of the tub. Between both of them, despite the awkwardness of the angle, he’s relatively easy to lift. They put him on the bathroom floor, and Sam turns him on his side and starts to move his arms to pump the water out of his lungs.

Dean’s confused by what he thinks, at first, is an attempt at resuscitation. “Sam?”

Sam speaks through the precise movements he’s making, but his eyes never leave Jimmy’s limp body and what he’s doing to expel the water. “We have to get the water out of his lungs. But that’s all. Then we just wait.”

“Can I do anything?” Dean asks as he sits on the edge of the bath and tries to stop shaking before Sam notices. His hands want to fidget – touch, hold, do anything, so he puts them in his lap and clasps them together to hold them still.

“No, I think I’m done,” Sam says sitting back, and for a moment, they both contemplate the lifeless body on the bathroom floor.

Eventually, Sam says. “Okay, let’s move him into the den. We have to be ready. Seriously, he could turn a corner and find the thing in minutes.”

Dean moves Sam out of the way and takes Jimmy’s head this time. He ignores Sam’s sorrowful glance and waits silently for him to pick up Jimmy’s feet. They place Jimmy carefully on the bed in the den, and Sam and Bobby just nod at each other. Bobby takes his position near all the bowls, and Sam drapes a blanket over Jimmy before he takes up a post leaning in the doorway against the frame. Dean starts pacing. And he keeps pacing for ten minutes until Bobby threatens to shoot him unless he stops.

There’s a clock on the nightstand by the bed, counting down in digital silence; after fifty-five minutes, they’re going to try and revive the body in front of them. Cas is in there somewhere, using his last remaining strength to keep Jimmy’s body habitable and the brain alive for when he comes back. If they get to the fifty-five minute mark, they all know (but no-one’s actually saying) that they’ll be lucky if they can bring Jimmy back. Or Cas. So they watch the clock.

Thirty minutes in, Dean’s pulling his frigging hair out by its short roots, Bobby’s on his third glass of whisky (which means it’s probably his twelfth shot, so Dean hopes to hell he can remember how to do the damned ritual), and Sam hasn’t moved. Sam’s the only one of them who’s managing to maintain the focus they all really need.

Forty minutes pass and Sam finally moves. He makes his way over to the bed, and Dean jerks upright, looking at Sam, then at Jimmy, to see what Sam might have seen.

“Whoa, Dean,” Sam says, placing a conciliatory hand on Dean’s shoulder and pushing him back down into his chair. “I’m just checking”.

Dean nonetheless watches hopefully as Sam feels for a pulse or a breath and lifts an eyelid to check Jimmy’s pupils. He watches up to the point that Sam has to turn his head to him and shake it slightly. No change. Jimmy’s still dead and Cas is buried so deep in the vessel that they have no way of registering his presence, or him theirs, from outside. 

Sometimes in their world, dead doesn’t mean dead. But sometimes it does.

Forty-five minutes in, and the convulsion from the figure on the bed is so small that they almost miss it. They all three glance at each other’s faces, realizing then that they hadn’t imagined it. Bobby tenses, and Sam and Dean both rush to the bed. There’s another small convulsion, this one followed by coughing. Lots of coughing. Sam and Dean quickly grab parts of Jimmy and turn him on his side. A small amount of water dribbles from his lips, and Sam grabs the pillow away from under his head to make it easier for Jimmy to expel what’s left of the water from his lungs.

“Jimmy,” Sam says, shaking Jimmy’s shoulder and crouching down by his head. “Did you get it?” Cliché though it is, the silence in the room is so absolute you could hear a pin drop. Hell, you could hear a feather drop. And Jimmy opens his eyes and he smiles and he brings one hand up from his side out from under the blanket and uncurls his long fingers to reveal the slim gold pencil nestling in his palm. And if it isn’t the most beautiful thing Dean’s ever seen he doesn’t know what is.

“Fuck, Jimmy. You’re awesome,” turns out to be the only semi-intelligent thing Dean can think of to say. Jimmy doesn’t seem to mind the banality though; his smile gets wider and he shuffles to sit up. Sam helps him, arranging pillows behind him. Dean lifts the small artifact from Jimmy’s hand. For a moment, their fingers touch, and Dean looks at Jimmy in query as Jimmy briefly squeezes Dean’s hand.

“Don’t make a liar of me, Dean.” Jimmy croaks out through his smile in a voice damaged by drowning and choking. “Don’t fuck it up.”

“Shit. You swore!”

“Yeah, been here too long.”

“Okay, let’s do this,” says Sam.

Dean takes the artifact across to Bobby, who takes it into his hand and puts it in the bowl for the ritual and starts chanting as soon as metal touches stone.

Dean’s not sure what he expected to happen, but it isn’t this. He supposes he’d thought a few minutes chanting, a few minutes mixing up the ingredients spread around the table, maybe a puff of smoke from the stone bowl, and hey presto, there’d be his favorite angel, all upright and stoic and raring to smite something. It doesn’t quite work like that, of course, and he really shouldn’t have been surprised.

The ritual takes over an hour. Sam and Bobby take turns, mixing and chanting and stirring the stuff in the bowl, not too dissimilar from what the demons had been doing in that board room. Jimmy loses consciousness (though whether as a result of the ritual or the toll of the last few days, Dean doesn’t know), but neither Bobby nor Sam looked surprised or worried, so Dean forces himself not to panic.

When Sam and Bobby stop, there’s no flash of light, there’s no waking angel.

“What now?” asks Dean.

Bobby shrugs. “We wait.”

Dean has no idea if it’s Jimmy or Cas that inhabits the unconscious body on the bed right now, and so he flounders, not knowing what to do or how to act. If it’s Cas that wakes up, Dean really wants to be there so he can yell at him for trying to sort this out on his own and look at the mess it got them all into. If it’s Jimmy, well, Dean really doesn’t want to be there, because it seems grossly unfair to subject Jimmy to the depths of Dean’s disappointment.

He picks the easy option and goes outside to lean against an old Mustang in the yard.

~~xxx~~

“DEAN?” Sam’s voice echoes loudly out across the yard.

Dean runs back to the house where Sam is waiting by the back door. Sam waves at him frantically when he sees him, and as Dean draws closer, Sam smiles. He fucking smiles. That can only mean one thing.

“He’s awake. Cas is awake,” Sam confirms. His voice is tired and relieved.

“Jimmy?” Dean asks, because he finds that he cares; a lot.

“Still there, Cas says.”

Dean claps Sam on the back as he goes past him through the door. Sam grabs his upper arm lightly as he goes, holding him back for just a second. “He’s pretty fried, Dean. Don’t yell at him.”

Oh. Well. There goes Plan A. “As if I would, Sammy.”

Bobby’s in the den when he gets there, but unsubtly wheels himself out when Dean arrives, muttering something about coffee, and Sam hangs back in the kitchen with Bobby.

Castiel is sitting on the edge of the bed, and he doesn’t look well, but he’s frigging alive, and Dean doesn’t even think twice before he pulls him up off the bed and into a bone-crushing hug (before dropping him back onto the bed before he falls onto it). He’s still wearing the t-shirt and boxers Jimmy wore when they drowned him in the tub, and he looks as if a puff of wind would knock him over, but he’s so definitely Castiel that Dean can’t stop grinning and he can’t stop touching.

Cas doesn’t grin back, or even give one of his little tentative lip curls.

“Cas, you okay?” Dean asks hesitantly.

“Dean, I’m sorry that I’ve been a burden.” Cas is looking at his knees, avoiding Dean’s gaze.

“Didn’t you listen to anything Jimmy told you?” Dean asks incredulously.

“Of course, but he said a lot of conflicting things and he interferes, even if he means well. And he’d say what was necessary to persuade me to help.”

“Then why did you help? If you didn’t believe him?”

“It was the right thing to do. To take care of Claire. And Amelia. And you and Sam, of course. I know it’s inconvenient. I’ll leave when I’m strong enough.”

“You will not leave,” Dean jumps up, annoyed. He hears Sam sigh, loud and exasperated, from the next room.

“Dean, I realize there were some things you felt obliged to say to encourage me. I want you to know I won’t hold you to any of those obligations.”

“I hope you will, Cas. I hope you’ll hold me to every frigging one of them.”

Cas does look up then, his eyes pinched in confusion.

“Crap. I’d kinda hoped you’d be feeling a bit better before we had this conversation.”

“Now is a good time, Dean.”

“If anyone asks, we did not have this conversation…”

“But we are having this conversation…?” Cas says, annoyed. Dean smiles. He’ll take annoyed Cas over depressed Cas every time.

Dean lowers his voice so Sam and Bobby can’t hear. “I know you miss your dick family, Cas, but you have us, you know. And I know you think I don’t care about you, but I do. And I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you, Cas. I’m sorry I’ve failed you, but I’m gonna make it up to you.”

Cas looks bewildered and doesn’t reply. Dean gets suddenly nervous. “I’m not going to force you into anything here, Cas, but crap, I hope…”

“I don’t want to have to leave you and Sam,” Cas blurts out in a rush.

“You don’t have to leave us. We don’t want you to leave us, you idiot. You can have both, if you want. Good things do happen, Cas. A wise man once told me that. It’s not that hard. Don’t over-think it. Learn from the expert at not over-thinking things.”

Dean sits on the edge of the bed next to Cas and winces when his knee clicks. In an even quieter voice, he says, “Everything I told Jimmy to tell you is true.”

Cas looks at him. He looks sad and frustrated. “You don’t do that. I’ve watched you. I know you.”

“Well, I do that with you,” Dean can’t believe how easy it is to say all this stuff. He could get ridiculous; he could have the ultimate chick-flick moment and say he’d just been waiting for the right person to say it to, but even he’s not going to go that far. “You’ll believe me when you’re still stuck with me in ten years.”

There’s a look in Cas’s eyes that says he desperately wants to believe, but there’s something else that’s wary and unsure.

“Ask Jimmy. He didn’t believe me either at first. If I could convince him…”

“Jimmy sees things differently than I do, and I don’t think…”

“I love you,” Dean says, interrupting.

Dean looks into Cas’s face, stoic and determined to take whatever crap life throws his way. He holds Cas’s eyes with his own. He leans across until he gets too close to focus and his lips only just touch Cas’s. He mouths the words across Cas’s skin. “I’m in love with you, Castiel. Don’t leave me. Stay. Please.” Dean can feel Cas’s breath against his cheek as he waits for a sign, any sign. After what seems like an eternity, he feels soft fingertips land on his jaw and stroke up until a palm is resting on each side of his face, holding his head steady, and Cas kisses him, briefly, before pulling away. “Okay,” he says.

[](http://lennyfics.livejournal.com/6066.html)

Cas doesn’t tell Dean he loves him back, but he can live with that. They’re only words. 

Dean drops his forehead onto Cas’s shoulder and Cas winces. Dean mumbles an apology as he lifts his head back up. “Sorry. I forgot. Will that heal now?”

Cas shakes his head. “Quicker than if I was human, but no, not straight away.”

“You should lie down and sleep it off. You’re not going to leave are you?”

“I couldn’t even if I wanted to,” Cas mumbles grumpily as he settles himself back down on the bed.

“But you don’t want to, right?”

“That’s right, Dean.”

Dean wants to kiss the little curve on the corner of Cas lips, so he does. When he walks out of the den, Sam and Bobby are both sporting curious half-smiles in the kitchen.

“What?” Dean mutters on his way out, but without any real heat and with a secret smile playing around his mouth.

~~xxx~~

Two days later, Dean drives Cas to see Claire at Ellen and Jo’s place. Cas isn’t quite up to flying yet, but he’s just been able to wake Jimmy up again, and Cas wants to see Claire, so they drive. 

The trip’s companionable; Dean’s put the last two days to good use, showing Cas, by his actions, that he meant every word he said (much to the amusement of Sam and Bobby). Dean’s not dumb; he knows they’re still fragile, that Cas is still fragile, but at least now they’re in the same chapter of the same frigging book, even if they haven’t quite got to the same page yet.

Claire’s already there when they arrive, and at the sound of the Impala growling to a halt outside the small cabin where Ellen and Jo now hole up, Claire’s rushing out to greet them. Dean’s curious to see if she’ll know it’s Cas, not Jimmy, but she does. Easily. He wonders if it’s because she’s also a vessel for Castiel, but that line of thinking starts to make him really uncomfortable, so he stops. He’s actually surprisingly good at not thinking about the things that he doesn’t want to think about.

“Uncle Cas! Uncle Cas!” She yells, her yellow hair bouncing behind her as she runs up and literally throws her arms around Cas’s waist. Cas doesn’t return the hug, but he does put a hand on her shoulder in comfortable familiarity and obvious affection. Dean feels weirdly proud of him; the Castiel he first met wouldn’t have thought to do that, wouldn’t have felt that. And then he thinks about all the other things that Cas now feels and he smiles. Cas has Jimmy now, too. Dean wouldn’t admit it out loud, but he feels a little jealous, even though he knows they annoy the hell out of each other.

Claire breaks away from Cas and comes up to Dean, offering her hand for him to shake, which he does seriously before grinning and ruffling her hair.

Ellen yells from the door. “You all coming in? I got coffee and lemonade.”

Claire grabs Dean’s hand in her right and Castiel’s in her left and leads them across the dust into Ellen’s. While Dean and Ellen drink coffee on the back deck, Cas and Claire take their lemonades a little further away to a bench under a tree. Dean’s not sure exactly what it is that Jimmy wanted Cas to tell Claire, but there are no tears, just sad acceptance on her face as she and Cas talk.

“Cas talks to her like she’s all grown up.”

“Yeah, I guess he would.” He glances sideways. “I hear you’re joining us for a devil hunt?”

“Yep. Jo will be back tonight. We’ll drive to Bobby’s tomorrow afternoon, then Carthage, here we come.”

“Fingers-crossed that it works.”

Claire rushes into the kitchen, and the smile is back in place.

“Claire, Cas and Dean are going now. Go wait outside, and I’ll take you home in a minute.” Ellen turns to Cas after Claire is far enough away. “What about…? If it doesn’t work.”

“I’ve given her somewhere else to go. In the worst case.”

Ellen nods. “Let’s hope she doesn’t need it. We’ll see you boys tomorrow.”

~~xxx~~

“I’m glad Claire likes you,” Cas says on the trip back.

“I like her too. She’s a plucky kid.”

“Yes, she is.”

“Tell Jimmy we’ll take care of her.”

“I did. But he already knew.”


End file.
